Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 2.djvu/389

Rh Examining farther the limestone contained in this stratum, both in the bed and in those masses which had fallen down, and lay about the shore, I observed a great many smooth cylindrical forms as perfect and sharp as though they had been sculptured. Pl. 27, fig. 2. These penetrated the rock in all directions, many projecting above the surface as if carved in basso and alto relievo, and exhibiting sections in every direction according to the fracture of the rock. They were also frequently broken out, leaving a cylindrical cavity where they had been.

These cylinders varied in size from one inch in diameter to the eighth of an inch, were sometimes straight, generally crooked, having much the appearance of eels in motion. They were exceedingly smooth on the outside, often slightly tapering, and, as well as the last mentioned forms, had evidently been inclosed in the rock at the time of its formation. When these cylinders were examined carefully, they appeared also to have an external coating or cortex, but it had been extremely thin, and was always worn off when they had been exposed by being on the surface.

Although I first noticed these beautiful cylindrical bodies in the limestone, yet I could afterwards trace them in the other parts of the sandstone stratum, although from the softness of the stone they were there almost obliterated; and I concluded them also to be some fossil organic remains, probably belonging to the class of Zoophytes; but I could not ascertain that they were parts of the same species as those I first mentioned, since in no instance could I find them distinctly connected together. Some rocks contained only one class, and some had both confusedly intermixed,

I found fragments of these fossils in every part of the island where the sandstone stratum can be seen, and even in the walls of buildings constructed of this stone; but it was only among the

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