526 
Petri fact [OK's. 
M 1 NERALOG Y. 
of mineralized ferpents are on record, not a few very 
ftriking remnants of turtles, crocodiles, and the larger 
forts of lizards, hive exercifed the ingenuity of fome of 
the full comparative nnatomifts of the age. Mr. Parkin- 
fon has allotted two letters (Organic Remains, voi. iii.) 
to the general confideration of this part of his fubjebl, and 
another tc that of the large amphibiolite of St. Peter’s 
Mountain, which has been afcertained to be neither a 
whale nor a crocodile, but, moft probably, as Cuvier has 
nearly demonftrated, one of an intermediate genus be¬ 
tween thofe of tlve lizard-tribe which have an ex ten file 
and forked tongue, and thofe which have a fhort tongue 
and the palate armed with teeth. Of fourteen kinds of 
foil'll tortoifes which have been obferved, one only ap¬ 
pears to be of a known fpecies ; while, of the remaining 
thirteen, it is fuppofed that none can be referred to any 
known fpecies, but five of them are decidedly non-de- 
fcripts. The author is, however, fully aware that the ob- 
febvations even of the enlightened, on thefe and fimilar 
productions, are very liable to error. “ Thus has Faujas 
St. Fond, in the elegant work where he has difplayeii fo 
many remains of thefe animals, millaken the Ihoulder- 
bone of a tortoife for the horn of a flag; fragments of the 
breall-bones of a tortoife for the branched part of the 
horns of the elk ; and two bones of the carpus, belong¬ 
ing alfo to the tortoife, for the pubis and the clavicle of 
a crocodile.” 
Ichthyouthus.—T he body or parts of a fifli changed 
into a foflil fubltance. 
The foflil fifli of Monte Bolcais efteemed by naturalifts 
one of the molt curious veftiges of the primordial organic 
world. Defcription conveys but a faint idea of this won¬ 
derful phenomenon, which was viewed with admiration, 
on the fpot, by Mr. Graydon, in June 1791 ; and the re- 
i'ult of his furvey was publilhed in the Tranf. of the Royal 
Irilh Academy, vol. v. 1794.. Monte Bolca is on the con¬ 
fines of the Verenefe territory, about fifty miles nearly 
weft from Venice. It is confiderably elevated above the 
level of the fea, and forms one of the chain of fecondary 
bills that rife in l'uccefiion, and terminate in the Alps of 
the hilhopric of Trent. The adjoining country is co¬ 
vered with the productions of extinCt volcanoes, and par¬ 
ticularly abounds with trapp, hornblende, and bafaltic 
columns. The whole of the hill, except the quarries in 
which the filh are found, appears to be compofed of fimi¬ 
lar materials. Thefe quarries conlift of calcareous ftone, 
of a fchiftous ItruCture, capable of being fplitinto flags of 
various dimentions. Its colour is a dirty whitifl), its 
grain dull and earthy, it has a ItruCture rather foft, and 
emits, when rubbed or ['craped, a peculiar fetid odour. 
The manner of working thel'e hones is by detaching from 
the face of the quarry moderate-iized blocks, which are 
then draw n out, let on edge, and quickly 1'plit with fharp- 
fided hammers or wedges, the workmen glancing be¬ 
tween the leaves to oblerve if,there be any mark of fiih, 
or other organic fubllance ; when they difcover l'uch, if 
they happen to be (battered, as they generally are, by the 
ru-de manner of opening, and the fragile texture of the 
(tone, they fet about to colleCt all the fragments that 
compofe the piece as carefully as poflible, detaching alfo 
from the great ftone l'uch parts as may remain adhering 
to it. When their day’s work is finifhed, they bring their 
collections to their houfes, until they happen to go ei¬ 
ther to market, or on any other occalion, to Verona, 
w hen they take them in balkets, juft as they are, to the 
proprietor of the foil, who is their landlord and employer ; 
or frequently to (ell underhand, for their own profit, to 
fome naturalift there, or to iome other (hops that vend 
thefe productions. Thofe who receive them in this man¬ 
ner from the peafants are then obliged to employ a fkilful 
ftone-cutter to find and arrange together the leveral frag¬ 
ments that compofe each piece, and fineer or cement them 
on another ftone of the lame kind, which is fometimes 
done with luch art and exaftnefs that it is not eaiy to dif- 
Petrifaction*. 
cern where they have been joined ; and thus the fpeci- 
mens are made up for cabinets, or for (ale. 
Befides this principal quarry, there are two or three 
others precifely fimilaP and equally rich in foflil filh ; but 
the peafantry of the neighbourhood, being very poor, and 
unaflifted by any appropriate funds, have not been able 
to clear away the bearing, and to prepare for working 
thefe with advantage. The ground belonged to fignor 
Bozza, formerly an apothecary of Verona, whofe cabinet 
has long attracted the notice of naturalifts and travellers. 
Flis whole collection, however, with the quarries, was 
recently purchafed, at a very confiderable expenfe, by the 
marquis Gazoia, of that city. A fcientific catalogue of 
their fpecimcns was communicated by thole gentlemen 
to the author of this paper. The cabinet contains al¬ 
ready above a hundred different fpecies of filh, having 
their features diltinCtly imprefled. What is very re¬ 
markable, thefe filh are defcribedas the modern natives of 
various feas moft remote from each other; and not of 
Europe only, but of Afia, the Indian Ocean, the South 
Sea, Africa, and North and South America. Nay, fome 
few are inhabitants of frefh water; and others belong to 
fpecies now extinft, or to which no fimilar living fpecies 
have yet been dilcovered. The filh are of a dark brown 
colour, and therefore appear very dilfinClly on the light 
ground of the ftone; they lie flat between the lamina: ; 
their profile, and their leveral parts, little, if at all, dif- 
torted from their natural lhape and dimeniions, except 
that in fome cafes the ftone inclofing them leems to have 
fuffered Come little difturbance, as if by fettlement, after 
their inclomre ; bywffiich they are found, at times, lome- 
vvhat fractured, and the parts a little disjoined. Their 
whole form is well defined ; but the harder parts, fuch as 
the head, fins, lpine, with the bones that branch from it 
on either fide, and indeed all the bones in general, as 
well as fome the fcales, are remarkably well exprefled. 
The dark-brown matter compofing thefe fifli remains dif- 
tinff, and may be picked off from the ftone, and projects 
in proportion to the thicknefs of each part in its natural 
ftate. It is hard, brittle, and rather gloffy through its 
lubftance, except in fome of the groffer bones, fuch as the 
joints of the vertebras, which, though of this appearance 
externally, are found, when broken, to coniift internally 
of laminar cryftallized fpar. To thofe who may not have 
an opportunity of feeing fpecimens of thefe fiih, it is fur¬ 
ther proper to mention, that, when the leaves of ftone that 
enclofe them are opened, the forms are found-equally im- 
preffed on each of the oppolite (ides; with this diffe¬ 
rence however, that more or lefs of the prominent brown 
matter of the bones, fins, and other parts, fometimes ad¬ 
heres to one leaf and fometimes to another, or frequently 
is divided between both ; the prominences on one fide, 
when the pieces have been carefully and well put toge¬ 
ther, being exaftly anfwered by correfponding hollows on 
the other ; and thus the more valuable fpecimens are 
formed in duplicates. This, properly confidered, mull 
furelymake the difficulty of fabrication; in l'uch inltances 
at lead, l'o great, that it may well be deemed infurmount- 
able ; and, if not from the nature of the cafe itlelf, yet de¬ 
cidedly lb at fuch expenfe, as either the capital of the late 
proprietor, or the prices of which he fometimes parted 
with fpecimens, would bear; fome, in his as well as in 
the marquis Gazola’s own cabinet, were of an immenle 
fize ; certainly, as the catalogue mentions, fully three feet 
long. . . 
The paucity of foflil fifli is attributed, by M. Faujas, to 
the quicknefs with which fifli are decompofed after death, 
and to the vail number which are deftroyed by the ftrong 
devouring the weak. But thel'e two circumftances, in 
the opinion of Mr. Parkinfon, by no means account for 
this interelling faCt. It is true, that the flelh may, if ex- 
poled to the air, loon run into putrefaction ; but even 
then, the bones in the fpinous fillies, and the leales and 
lpicuke, would be left; the two latter being, as has been 
a obferved 
