CONCH 
0'.' argonaut, the alated murex, and a great variety of 
elegant fnails, with fome of the dolia or tuns, and neritae. 
The Adriatic fea, or gulf of Venice, is lefs furnifhed with 
lliells than almoll any of the feas thereabout. Mufcles 
and oylters of feveral fpecies are however found there, 
and fome of the cordiform (hells; there are alfo lome 
tellinae. About Ancona there are found vail numbers of 
the pnolades buried in Hone; and the aures marina; are 
particularly frequent about Puzzoli. The ports of Mar¬ 
seilles, Toulon, and Antibes, are full of pinnae marinae, 
mufcles, tellinae, and chamse. The coalts of Bretagne 
afford great numbers of the conchse anatiferte and acorns; 
they are found on old rotten boards, on fea fubftances, 
and among clutters of fponges. The other ports of France, 
as Rochelle, Dunkirk, Breit, St. Maloes, and others, fur- 
nidi oyllers excellent for the table, but of the common 
kind, and of no beauty in their ihells ; great numbers of 
mufcles are alfo found there ; and the common tellinae, 
the onion-peel oylters, the folens, and conchae anatiferse, 
are alfo frequent there. At Granville there are found 
very beautiful peftens, and fome of the heart-diaped diells 
called Jlr dewberries. 
Our own Englidi coalts are not the lead fruitful in 
fnells, though they do not produce fuch elegantly painted 
ones as tire Indies. About Plymouth are found oylters, 
mufcles, and folens, in great abundance ; and there, and 
on mod of our other diores-, are numbers of the aures ma- 
rinte and dentalia, with peftens, which are excellent food; 
and many elegant fpecies of the chamte and tellinse are 
lilhed up in tiie fea about Scarborough and other places. 
Ireland affords us great numbers of mufcles, and lome 
very elegant elcallop-fliells in great abundance, and the 
pholades are frequent on molt of our diores. We have 
alfo great variety of the buccina and cochleae, fome vo- 
lutre, and, on the Guernfey coalt; a peculiarly beautiful 
fnail, called thence the Guernfey-fnail. The coalts of 
Spain and Portugal afford much the fame fpecies of Ihells 
with the Ealt Indies, but they are of much fainter colours, 
and greatly inferior in beauty. There are, according to 
Tavernier and others, lome rivers in Bavaria in which 
there are found pearls of a fine water. About Cadiz, there 
are found very large pinnae marinas, and fome fine buc¬ 
cina. The ifles of Majorca and Minorca afford a great 
variety of extremely elegant diells. The pinnae marinas 
are alfo very numerous there, and their (ilk or beards is 
wrought into gloves, dockings, and other things. The 
Baltic affords a great many beautiful fpecies, but particu¬ 
larly an orange-coloured peften, or elcallop-fheii, which 
is not found in any other part of the world. 
The rredi-water diells are alfo found in great plenty ; 
there is fcarcely a pond, a ditch, or a river of-frefli water, 
in any part of the world, in which there are not found valt 
numbers pf (hells, with the fidi living in them.. All thefe 
diells are fmall, and they are of very little beauty, being 
ufually of a plain greyifh or brownidi colour. Our ditches 
afford us chamte, buccina, neritae, and fome patellae ; blit 
the Nile, and fome other rivers, furnifhed the ancients 
with a fpecies of tellina which was large and eatable, and 
fo much fuperior to the common fea tellina in davour, 
that it is commonly known by the name of tellina regia, 
the royal tellina.” We have a fmall fpecies of buccinum 
common in our fredi waters, which is very elegant, and 
always has its operculum in the manner of the larger 
buccina; a fmall kind of mufcle is alfo very common, 
which is io extremely thin and tender, that it can hardly 
be handled without breaking to pieces. The large fre(h- 
vvater mufcle, commonly called in England the horfe- 
mufcle , is too well known to need a delcription ; and 
the (ize fufficiently diilinguidies it from all other frefli- 
vvater diells. 
Of FOSSIL SHELLS. 
Fodil diells are found buried at great depths in the 
earth. Or thefe fome are found remaining afriiolt entirely 
in their native ltate, but others are viuioudy altered by 
O L O G Y. ‘59 
being impregnated with particles of (tone and of other 
fodils; in the place of others there is found-mere’ltme 
or fpar, or fome other native mineral body, expieliing all 
their lineaments in the mod exnft manner, as having been 
formed wholly from them, the (hell having been firft de- 
pofited in fome iolid matrix, and thence jtlidolved by very 
dow degrees, and this matter left; in its place, on the ca¬ 
vities ot (tone-and other /olid fubftances, out of which 
Ihells had been diffolved and wadied away, being after¬ 
wards filled up lefs (lowly with thefe different fubftances, 
whether fpar or whatever elfe; thefe fubftances, fo filling 
the cavities, can necefiarily be of no other form than that 
ol the diell, to the abler,ce of which the cavity was ow¬ 
ing, though all the nicer lineaments may not be fo exaftly 
expreded. Belides thefe, we have alfo in many places 
niafles of (tone formed within various diells; and thefe 
having been received into the cavities of the diells while 
they were perfectly fluid, and having therefore nicely filled 
all their cavities, mull retain the perfeft figures of the in¬ 
ternal part of the (hell, when the fuel! itfelf diould be worn 
away or perifhed from their outfrde. The various fpecies 
we find ot thefe are, in many genera, as numerous as the 
known recent ones; and as we have in our own idand 
not only the diells of our own diores, b\it thofe of many 
other very diftant ones, fo we have alio many fpecies, and 
thofe in great numbers, which are in their recent (late, 
the inhabitants of other yet unknown or unfearched leas 
and diores. The cockles, mufcles, oylters, and the other 
common bivalves of our own leas, are very abundant: 
but we have alio an amazing number of the .nautilus 
kind, particularly of the nautilus grcecorum, which though 
a (hell not found living in our own or any neighbouring 
feas, yet is found buried in all our clay-pits about Lon¬ 
don and elfewhere; and the molt frequent of ail fodil 
(hells in fome of our counties are the conchas anomite, 
which yet we know not of in any part of the world in 
their recent ltate. Of this fort alio are the cornua arn- 
monis and the gryphitas, with feveral of the echinita: and 
others. 
The exaft dmilitude of the known diells, recent and 
fodil, in their feveral kinds, will by no means fuffer us to 
believe that thefe, though not yet known to us in their 
living ltate, are, as fome have idly thought, a fort of lufus 
naturae. It is certain, that of the many known diores, 
very few, not even thofe of our own iliand, have been yet 
carefully (earched for the Ihell-filh that inhabit them ; 
and as we fee in the nautilus grascorum an inltance of 
Ihells being brought from very diftant parts of the world 
to be buried here, we cannot wonder that yet unknown 
diores, or the unknowm bottoms of deep feas, diould have 
furnidied us with many unknown dicll-fidi, which may 
have been brought with the reft; whether they were at 
the time of the general deluge, or the effeft of any other 
cataftropbe of a like kind, or by whatever other means, 
to be left in the yet unhardened matter of our ltoney and 
clayey It rata. 
Of all the fofiil (hells, the cornua ammonis, vulgarly 
called ferpent-jlones, or J'nake jlones, is decidedly the molt 
elegant and curious. They are found of all dzes, as no¬ 
ticed in p. 22'; fome of them rounded, others greatly 
compreded, and lodged in different ftrata of itones and 
clays, even in the molt elevated fituationsl Some of thefe 
(hells are fmooth, and others ridged in different direc¬ 
tions ; their (trice and ridges being' either ltraight, irre¬ 
gularly crooked, or unduiated. So few of this family 
having been yet found in their recent or living (late, 
makes it feein wonderful whence fo valt a number and 
variety of them diould be brought into our fubterranean 
regions. They (eem indeed difperfed in great plenty 
throughout the world, but no where found in greater 
numbers, beauty, and variety, than in our idand.' Mr. 
HarenbeFg found prodigious numbers- of them on the 
banks of a river in Germany.' He traced this river through 
its feveral-windings for many miles; and among a great 
variety of belemhitse, cochiiue, &c, he found more than. 
4- thirty 
