From all which, and several other particulars which I observ’d, I cannot but think, that all these, and most other kinds of stony bodies which are found thus strangely figured, do owe their formation and figuration, not to any kind of _Plastick virtue_ inherent in the earth, but to the Shells of certain Shel-fishes, which, either by some Deluge, Inundation, Earthquake, or some such other means, came to be thrown to that place, and there to be fill’d with some kind of Mudd or Clay, or _petrifying_ Water, or some other substance, which in tract of time has been settled together and hardned in those shelly moulds into those shaped substances we now find them; that the great and thin end of these Shells by that Earthquake, or what ever other extraordinary cause it was that brought them thither, was broken off; and that many others were otherwise broken, bruised and disfigured; that these Shells which are thus _spirallied_ and separated with _Diaphragmes_, were some kind of _Nautili_ or _Porcelane shells_; and that others were shells of _Cockles_, _Muscles_, _Periwincles_, _Scolops_, &c. of various sorts; that these Shells in many, from the particular nature of the containing or enclos’d Earth, or some other cause, have in tract of time rotted and mouldred away, and onely left their impressions, both on the containing and contained substances; and so left them pretty loose one within another, so that they may be easily separated by a knock or two of a Hammer. That others of these Shells, according to the nature of the substances adjacent to them, have, by a long continuance in that posture, been _petrify’d_ and turn’d into the nature of stone, just as I even now observ’d several sorts of Wood to be. That oftentimes the Shell may be found with one kind of substance within, and quite another without; having, perhaps, been fill’d in one place, and afterwards translated to another, which I have very frequently observ’d in _Cockle_, _Muscle_, _Periwincle_, and other shells, which I have found by the Sea side. Nay, further, that some parts of the same Shell may be fill’d in one place, and some other caverns in another, and others in a third, or a fourth, or a fifth place, for so many differing substances have I found in one of these _petrify’d_ Shells, and perhaps all these differing from the encompassing earth or stone; the means how all which varieties may be caus’d, I think, will not be difficult to conceive, to any one that has taken notice of those Shells, which are commonly found on the Sea shore: And he that shall throughly examine several kinds of such curiously form’d stones, will (I am very apt to think) find reason to suppose their generation or formation to be ascribable to some such accidents as I have mention’d, and not to any _Plastick virtue_: For it seems to me quite contrary to the infinite prudence of Nature, which is observable in all its works and productions, to design every thing to a