A Description of Certain Stones Figured Like Plants, and by Some Observing Men Esteemed to be Plants Petrified: Communicated to the Publisher By the Same Mr. Lister, from York Novemb. 4th. 1673

mand a specimen of it, that it may be better examin'd by more skilful Naturalists. 2. There is another Mineral Juice in these parts of England, which I have much inquir'd after, and have longed to see; and now I am likely to be satisfied, as you may think by Mr. Jessop's words: Captain Wain, (saith he) a diligent and knowing person in Mines, gave me a White Liquor, resembling Cream both in colour and consistence, which he found in great quantities at the bottom of a Coal-pit, 49 yards deep, which I reserve for you. But this is not all the information that hath been given me about this White Liquor. Mr. George Planton, a curious and very intelligent person, writes thus to me from Sheriff Hales in Shropshire: I shall trouble you with an Observation, I lately met with in our Iron-mines, especially that which the Country people here call the White Mine, which yields the best Iron-Stone. The Miners do commonly, upon the breaking of a Stone, meet with a great quantity of a whitish milky Liquor, inclosed in the Center of it; they sometimes find a Hogshead contain'd in one cavity. 'Tis in taste sweetish; only it hath a Vitriolic and Iron-like twang with it. So far Mr. Lister and his friends, from whose generosity we have received a parcel of each of these substances for further examination. A Description of certain Stones figured like Plants, and by some Observing men esteem'd to be Plants petrified: Communicated to the Publisher, by the same Mr. Lister, from York Novemb. 4th. 1673. Sir, In this paper I send you an Account of some of the Parts of certain Stones figured like Plants; which Agricola (5° Fossilium) calls Trochite, and the compound ones Entrochi; we in English, St. Cuthbert's beads. Agricola will have them akin for substance to the Lapidus Judaici; and, indeed, there are of an opague and dark coloured Sparr; though I have of them from some parts of England of a white Sparr or Gauke, as our Miners call it: They all break like Flint, polish'd and shining. Put into Vinegar (saith he) they bubble: Atque etiam repe- But this is true of all Fossils of what figure so ever, that Vinegar will corrode and dissolve as a Mensium; provided they be broken into indifferent small grains, and the bottom of the Vessel hinder not, they will be moved from place to place by it. The figure of the Trochite is cylindrical, the outmost round or Circle (we speak of one single joint, which Agricola calls Trochites) is in general smooth, both the flat-sides are thick drawn with fine and small rays, from a certain hole in the middle to the circumference. From the shooting of these rays like Antimonie, and because a large Peice of this Stone of many joints resembles the bole of a Tree, Aldrovandus (who yet elsewhere discourses of this Stone, after Agricola and Gesner, under the name of Trochite and Entrochi) not improperly terms it (Musaei Metallici lib. i. pag. 188.) Stelebites Stibii facie; and there gives us a true figure of it. Two, three, or more of these Trochite joined together, make up that other Stone, which he calls Entrochos. The Trochite or single joints are so set together, that the Rays of the one enter into the others Furrows, as in the Sutures of the skull. Hitherto we agree to what Agricola, Gesner, Boetius, Aldrovandus and Wormius have said of them: We proceed upon our own Observations, which go much further. The Places where we find them very plentifully, are certain Scars in Braughton and Stock, little Villages in Craven. The Stones of the abovesaid described Figure, as many as have yet come to my hands from those places, have afforded us these Particulars. As to their biggest, I never yet met with any much above two inches about; others there are as small as the smallest pino, and of all magnitudes betwixt those proportions. They are all broken bodies; some shorter Pieces, some longer, and some of them, indeed, Trochite, that is, but single joints. I never found one entire piece much above two inches long, and that very rarely too; in some of which long pieces, I have reckoned about 30 joints. And as they are all broken bodies, so are they found dejected and lying confusedly in the Rock, which in some places, where they are to be had, is as hard as Marble, in other places soft and shelly (as they call it,) that is, rotten and perished with the wet and air. And though in some places they are but sprinkled here and there in the Rock, yet there are whole beds of Rock of vast extent, which are made up for the most part of these, and other figured Stones, as Bivalve, Serpentine, Turbinate, &c., as at Braughton. As to the injuries they have received in their removal from the natural posture, if not place of their growth and formation, they are manifest. For, besides their being all broken bodies, we find many of them depressed and crushed, as if the joint of a hollow Cave should be trod under foot: These Crushes being also real Cracks as of a stone or glass. Again these stones consisting of many vertebrae or joints, they are many of them strangely dislocated; sometimes two, three, or more of the joints in a Piece are slipped and out of order or rank, and sometimes a whole series of joints, as when a pack of Crown pieces leans obliquely upon a Table. Further, others I have that are twisted like a Cord, if this possibly may be reckoned amongst the injuries. Lastly, some have their joints, indeed, even and in file, but are yet stuffed with a forrane matter, as when bricks are layed in morter. There is great variety as to the thickness of the Trochite or single joints: some are so thin, that they are scarce the full of the 24th part of an inch; others are a full quarter of an inch thick; of these latter I only found at Stock: These, I say, are the extreme proportions, as far as my Observations have yet gone; there are joints of all measures betwixt those two Extremes. This is true in divers Pieces, for mostly the joints are of an equal thickness in one and the same Piece. Note, that there are slender and small Entrochi or Pieces, which have as thick joints, as the biggest and fairest Pieces. There is also some difference in the seams or closing of the joints: Some are but seemingly jointed; which appears by this, that if they be eaten down a while in distilled vinegar, the seeming Suturs will vanish, as in some I had out of Staffordshire, from about Beresford upon the Dove: Others and all here at Braughton and Stock are really jointed, and the Sutures indented; which indentures being from the terminating of the rays, they are more fair or large, according to the difference of the rays, but even, equal, and regular. We have said, that generally the outmost Circle of each joint is flat and smooth; yet are there many other differences to be noted as to that Part: Very probably because they are Parts or Pieces of different species of rock-plants. 1. That the smooth-joyned (to say no more of them here) are of different thicknesses as to the joints. 2. On some Entrochi betwixt Suture and Suture in the middle of each joint, are certain Knots in a Circle; the joints thus distinguished are very deep and large, and are very frequent at Stock. 3. There are likewise of these with a circle of knots, which have many knots besides upon each joint and look rugged. 4. Some with much thinner joints, which yet have a Circle of knots in the middle of each joint; and this also looks as though it was all over knotted, and these are found at Braughton only, as far as I know. 5. As some have but one Circle of knots, others are knotted all over the joint and rough; so are there some others, which have a Circle of larger knots in the middle of each joint, and a circle of lesser on each side close adjoining to the border or verge of the Suture. This is huge pretty, and they are found at Stock. 6. Others betwixt Suture and Suture in the middle of each joint rise with a circular edge. 7. A smooth Entrochos with a large or much risen edg on the middle of one of the joints, and a much smaller on the middle of another joint and that alternatively. 8. The same alternate difference, the joints only much rounder and blunt, and here the joints are visibly one thicker than the other. 9. The same with alternate edges knotted. 10. A double edg in the middle of every joint; this makes the joints look as though they were exceeding thin and numerous, but indeed they are not so. 11. A double edg in the middle of every joint knotted by intervals, or as it were serrate edges. And these are some of the differences, that I have at present been able to make out. Some of the Pieces of most, if not all, of the differences of these Entrochi are famous, having ving lesser branches deduced from the greater, and that without order. Some have but few branches on a Piece; others I find so thick of branches, that they resemble a ragged Staff. These Branches are deep inserted within the stemm, and by being separated, leave great holes in the sides of it. The rays in the joints of the branches run cross to the rays of the stemm. On thick stems are sometimes very small branches, but mostly the bigger the stemm, the thicker the branches. Some of these branches are branched again: Yet I find not any of them above one inch entire, and yet adhering and inserted into its stock or bole, and for the most part not above a joint or two. The Branches are known from the stemm, by being a little crooked and something tapering or Conic. We meet with but few Pieces (besides the branches) that are not exactly Cylindrical, setting aside the injuries above mentioned, that is, that are not as thick at one end as at the other, and perfectly round, notwithstanding that we said, that there are of them of all degrees of magnitude within the proportions above-named. And, as we said, it is rare to meet with a Piece, that is not exactly cylindrical; so amongst those few that are not so, some we find tapering at both Ends, and much swelled in the middle. And this is the other Species of this Stone, according to the division of Agricola: Entrochi duo sunt Species; aut enim equaliter teres est; aut teres quidem, sed pars ejus media tumet, utrumque caput angustius est. But this must not be understood, as though both ends were compleat; for, these are but broken Pieces, as the rest, more swelled in the middle. Others there are figured like a kind of Fruit, or Lapis Judaicus; but these also are truly Entrochi, and are jointed notwithstanding this shape. Upon a small Stalk of two or three joints is suddenly raised an Oval bottom, broken off also at both ends. To these we shall add what seems to have been summitates or fastigia; long and slender Pieces with a little jointed button, hollow on the very top; which top seems not to have been divided or broken off from any thing else. I must not forget, that as they are hollow in the middle (and so it was easy to string them like beads), which gave occasion to the English name; so these hollows are sometimes filled with earth, and sometimes another Entrochos is inclosed like a pair of screws, and which is (as it were) pith to the other. Of these inward Entrochi some I have which are transparent. Note, that the hollows or pits are of different bores, but most are round. And yet there are of them in great plenty at Stock, whose hollow in the middle is in the elegant fashion of a Cinquefoil; and the rays of the joints of these Entrochi are much deeper and fewer in number, than of any other yet observed by me. These also are smooth-joyned. This is most surprising, and I know not any Vegetable, whose Pith is perforate in such a manner. Lastly we in these Rocks find certain rude Stones, of the bigness of Walnuts, which have many impressions of Trochite upon them, as though they had been the roots of them. And when these have been a little cleansed in Vinegar, these impressions appear more than casual; for, the substance that covers them (if not the Stones themselves) is Sparr, and the impressions are round holes with rays, like those holes, which we said above the Branches made in the sides of the Stock, when broken out from them. Agricola makes mention of these also: Sepenumero lapis informis seperitur unda cum Trochite & Entrocho, Rota in se continens figuram; qua in eo quasi quaelam radix, Trochitis jam abruptis, remansit. Although there are indeed certain lapides informes, which may with some colour be thought to have been the Roots, from whence some Entrochi have been broken; yet are not all such lumps of Stone, on which we discern the Vestigia of Entrochi to be called lapides informes, some of them being most elegantly figured. One or two of them, which I found entire and compleat at Stock, amongst very many others strangely shattered and defaced, I shall describe to you. 1. The first is in the fashion of a Pine Apple or Cone, with a hollow bottom, about the half of an inch deep, and as much over at the bottom: On the very Top is the round figure of an Entrochos broken off; round about the bottom or basis are five single feet at equal distances, in the figure of Crescents. This Stone is incrustate or made up of angular Places; viz., the bottom is composed of five plates, which we call Feet; the middle die of the Stone of five other plates, all of a Sexangular figure; and the Top Stone. All other plates are smooth on the outside. 2. The second is a large Stone of the bigness of a Walnut, much after the pyramidal fashion of the other; the bottom convex, about one inch and a quarter over; on the top is the lively impression of an Entrochos broken off, or rather a Trochites yet remaining; round the Basis are five double points or Feet at equal distances, all broken off and somewhat in the figure of Crescents. This Stone also is incrustate or covered with Sex-angular plates, which are rough. I can compare the incrustating of these stones to nothing so well, as to the skins of the Pisces Triangularis, which Margravius describes: Cuius Cutis (nam caret squamis) figuris Trigonis, tetragonis, pentagonis, hexagonisque mire distinguitur et notatur. Of these figured plates I find so great variety in the Rocks, both as to the number of Angles and other beautiful Ornaments, that it has caused in me great admiration. And it will not be amiss, since they manifestly belong, as parts, to the above described stones, to enumerate them, at least, as many as have yet come to my hands. Some of these angular plates, I said, are yet visible in their natural place and posture, in the described stones: But I find the greatest part of them broken up and heaped together in great confusion in the Rocks. And it will be as hard to set them together, as to skill to tell you, what the figure of an entire Entrochos (or the stone to which all the above described parts seem to belong) is: But we will omit no part, that we can justly say belongs unto it. We shall begin with Pentagonous plates. 1. The first is a Pentagonous Stone, as broad as my thumbnail (we speak of the fairest of them,) hollow on the one side, like a Dish; convex on the other side, where are certain eminent knots, about the bigness of small pinn-heads, set in a kind of square order: This plate is somewhat thin at the edges and yet blunt. 2. The second is also Pentagonous, and not much narrower than the other: It is, indeed, somewhat convex above, but not hollow underneath; it is smooth on both sides, at least without those eminent knots, which are so remarkable in the other plate: plate: The edges of these are as thin as of a knife, and sharp. 3. The third Pentagonal Plate is not near so broad, as either of the former; yet one I found amongst a 100 of this sort, that is full as large as any of the above described: These are all convex on the one side and somewhat hollow on the other; thick edged; one of the 5 sides only is indented; the indented side is ever the thinnest, and the stone is most floped towards that side. Note, that there are many amongst these last indented sorts of plates, which are channelled on the concave side and otherwise notched. 4. All these Pentagonal plates are to be found plentifully at Braughton or Stock. But I shall not omit in this place the mentioning of one, I by chance espied amongst certain figured Stones, which I had out of the Quarry near Wansford-bridge in Northamptonshire, and it probably belongs to these kind of plates I am now in hand with. It has one of the five sides thick indented; the convex part has in the middle a raised Umbro, like some antient shields, and round about the sides a list of smaller Studs. We have since had some plates much like this from Bugthorp under the Woolds in Yorkshire. We proceed to remarke some differences in the sex-angular plates. 5. All these stones are but small, save here and there one: The first of them is but little hollow on the one side, and convex on the other; having the convex-side most elegantly wrought with raised or embossed work, that is, with an equilateral triangle bestriding each Corner, and a single right line in the midst; or, if you will, two Triangles one within another. These we found at Braughton-fear only. 6. That Plate-stone which is most common in these Rocks, there being a 1000 of these to be found for one of the other, is sexangular, a little hollow on the one side and convex on the other: They are for the most part smooth on the convex side or scabrous only; some are much thicker than others; some being as thick as broad, but most are Plate-like; the sides are very unequal, as in Crystals; sometimes five broader sides and one very small; again two sides broad and four much narrower, and infinite other differences as to the inequality of sides. Words are but the arbitrary symboles of things, and perhaps haps I have not used them to the best advantage. Good Design (and such is that I send you, done by that ingenious young Gentleman and excellent Artist, my very good friend, Mr. William Lodge,) or the things themselves, which I have all by me, would make these particulars much more intelligible and plain to you. The Explication of the Figures. See Tab. I. 1. A Trochites or single joint with very fine and small Rays. 2. A Trochites or single joint with the pith bored through, in the fashion of cinquefoil. 3. A Trochites or single joint, of an Oval figure, the rays scarce apparent and a very small point in the place of the Pith. 4. A single joint of two of a middle size, with the pith exceeding large. 5. A pack of single joints dislocated, and yet adhering in their natural order. 6. A very long Entrochos or a piece of many smooth joints with the branches broken off. 7. An Entrochos with smooth joints not branched. 8. The biggest Entrochos I have yet seen, with stumps of branches. 9. A smooth Entrochos with very thin and numerous joints. 10. The largest or deepest jointed Entrochos, save the oval one noted in the third figure. 11. An Entrochos with very many disorderly knots in each joint. 12. An Entrochos with only one single Circle of knots in the middle of each joint. 13. An Entrochos with three Circles of knots. 14. A smooth Entrochos, with a large and much risen edge in the middle of each joint. 15. Alternate joints round or blunt. 16. A double edg in the middle of each joint. 17. Alternate joints, edged. 18, 19, 20. Certain other differences noted in the Paper, but not perfectly express'd in the Design. 21. An Entrochos with a branch of a good length. 22. A branch of an Entrochos knocked off. 23. An Entrochos fruit-like. 24. A fastigium or Summitas. 25. A radix of an Entrochos in Prospective: where A is a joint or Trochites yet remaining, whence an Entrochos was broken off. C, E, F, D, are four of the double feet; the 5th being hid. 26. The same radix to be seen at the best advantage: A the Trochites or basis: C, B, D, E, F, the five double Feet. Note also the sex-angular rough plates, which incrustate the stone or cover it all over. 27. A smaller Radix with smooth plates and five single Feet: H, the top stone. I, one of the five Feet. K, one of the five angular plates which incrustate the middle of the stone. G, the basis. Also the same stone in prospective. G, the same with the hollow bottom upwards. Figures of Plates supposed to incrustate divers roots. 28. A pentagonal plate knotted. 29. A thin edged smooth pentagonal plate. 30. An indented pentagonal plate. 31. The Northamptonshire pentagonal plate. 32. A large pentagonal smooth plate. 33. An hexagonal plate imbedded with angles. 34. An hexagonal plate, as deep as broad. 35. 37. Odd figured plates. 36. A quadrangular plate ribbed and indented. So far this Letter; which was soon after followed by another, containing the Learned Mr. Ray's annotations upon the same, which were these: I received (faith Mr. Ray) your accurate Observations about St. Cuthberts beads. A strange thing it seems to me, that the broken pieces of those bodies, which you find, I mean, of the main stems, should be of equal bigness from the top to the bottom, and not at all tapering, if they be indeed the bodies of Rock-plants. There are found in Malta certain stones, called St. Pauls Batoons, which I suppose were originally a fort of Rock-plants, like small lugged sticks, but without any joints; the trunks whereof diminish according to the propor- proportion of other plants after the putting forth of their branches. Those Roots, that you have observed, are a good argument, that these Stones were originally pieces of Vegetables. Wonderful it is, that they should be all broken, and not one plant found remaining entire: And no less wonderful, that there should not at this day be found the like vegetables growing upon the Submarine rocks; unless we will suppose them to grow at great depths under water. And who knows but there may be such bodies growing on the rocks at this day, and that the Fishers for Coral may find of them; tho being of no use they neglect and cast them away. Certain it is, there is a sort of Coral jointed. A further Description and Representation of the Icy Mountain, called the Gletscher, in the Canton of Berne in Helvetia; which was formerly taken notice of in Numb. 49. of these Tracts. This account was imparted to us from Paris by that worthy and obliging person, Monsieur Justel, who had received it from a trusty hand living upon the place, as follows: The Icy Mountain, of which I have sent you the Scheme*, deserves to be view'd. The letter A signifies the Mountain itself, which is very high, and extends itself every year more and more over the neighbouring meadows, by increments that make a great noise and cracking. There are great holes and caverns, which are made when the Ice bursts; which happens at all times, but especially in the Dog-days. Hunters do there hang up their game they take during the great heat, to make it keep sweet by that means. Very little of the surface melts in summer, and all freezeth again in the night. When the Sun shineth, there is seen such a variety of colors as in a Prism. B. is a rivulet, issuing forth from under the Ice, which is pretty deep and extremely cold. C. are the Huts, that were built at the beginning, at a considerable distance from the Mountain; but at present they are nigh to it by reason of the continual increase which this Ice maketh. There is such an other Mountain near Geneva and upon the Alps.