Inc Versteinerungen WOrtembergs, &c. Stuttgart, 1830, and following years, folio.
Specimen I'hllosopblcum Inanimate, exhibens Nionographiam Ammo. niteorum et Gonlatiteerom, eta. 1525, Legdunl Bator, The accompanying cuts, which are copied from De Blainville, will not only give the reader some idea of the shape of the aperture, but also of the external appearance of the shell, while the following, from Dr. Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise,' will convey a notion of the coneamerations in some of the species. An internal view of a very simple form of these and of the siphon or pipe will be seen in the out of Ammonites obtusus.
A. Cardamomum has a root-stock creeping under the surface of the soil like that of the Ginger, but it is smaller. The sterna rise obliquely to the height of from two to four feet. The leaves are alternate. Flowers in spikes, seated in lanceolate acute villous scarious ash-coloured bracts. The tube of the corolla slender. The anther double, with a large three-lobed concave crest. The fruit a capsule containing roundish angular dotted brown seeds. This plant is a native of the mountainous parts of Java and Sumatra, and is commonly cultivated in the gardens of India. The seeds are aro matic, and are used by the Malays instead of the true Cardamoms, which are the produce of the Elettaria Cardamomum. [ELETTARIA.] Sir J. E. Smith states that this plant is the Amontunt reruns of the older botanists.
Geological Distribution.—Professor Phillips, in his Guide to Geology,' published in 1834, since which time numerous additions have been made, thus distributes the Ammonites among the different formations.
Geographical Distribution.—As the Ammonites were evidently prin cipal agents for keeping within bounds the mollusks, &c., the crusta ceans, and perhaps fishes of the periods prior to the Chalk Formation, and belonging to the latter epoch, we should expect to find them widely distributed. Accordingly, they occur in Europe, Asia, and America in strata apparently of the same date. In some instances, the genera and even the species are identical. Dr. Gerard found in the Himalaya Mountains, at an elevation of 16,000 feet, Ammonites Walcott ii and Ammonites commune, fossils that are found in the Lies of Lyme Regis. M. Mdnard met with one in the Maritime Alps at an elevation of 1500 toises. Their numbers must have been great. M. Dufresne informed Lamarck that the road from Auxerre to Avalon in Burgundy was absolutely paved with them. The individual agency too of some of these carnivorous instruments for preserving the balance of marine animal power must have been of no small importance. Lamarck says that he has seen Ammonites of two feet (French) in diameter. Mr. James Sowerby and Dr. Mantel record Ammonites in the Chalk with a diameter of three feet ; and Dr. Buck land states that Sir T. Harvey and Mr. Keith measured Ammonites in the Chalk near Margate which exceeded four feet in diameter ; and this in cases where the diameter could have been in a very small degree enlarged by pressure.