BELEMNITES (from the Greek fl(searos, a dart or arrow), Pfeil stein and Donnerstein of the Germans, Pierre de Foudre of the French, a genus of extinct Cephalopodous Mollusca, whose conical remains were for a long time utterly misunderstood. Before the geological history of this extinct marine animal was well made out, few natural productions ministered more largely to the superstitious feelings of man. The ancients, it was said, had a legend that they came from the lynx, and called them Lapidca Lyncis and Lyneuria. They were also, from being found on Mount Ida, and from their supposed resemblance to those organs, called Idtei Dactyli, or Petrified Fingers. This idea was too much in unison with the gloomy imagination of the northern nations to be lost : we accordingly find the term Devil's Fingers bestowed on them, and not unfroquently that of Spectre Candles.
Afterwards came the age of Thunder-Stones and Picks, when this fossil was alleged to be the produce of electricity, and was called by the learned Lapis fubninans. They were also called Arrow-Heads.
Subsequently, and at the period when organic remains were almost universally regarded as luaus nature., formed by the plastic power of the earth, the Belemnite was considered, even by those who had adopted more correct opinions upon the subject of many fossil shells, to be strictly mineral,—to be a stalactite or a crystal ; and by some who found it in the sandy parts of Prussia, where amber also occurs, it was supposed to be that substance petrified.
At length it began to be granted that the Belemnite was of organic animal origin, and the conical cavity at its broader end caused it to be looked upon as the tooth of some unknown creature ; while some pronounced it to be a spine, like those of an Echinus, and others gave way to various conjectures not worth recording. Then arrived the dawn of Von Tressau, Klein, Breynius, Da Costa, Brander, and Platt, who allowed the fossil to be of testaceous origin, but knew nothing of its relative position. At last, the increasing light of science placed the lielemnite in a comparatively clear point of view.
A substance with which fable had been so busy was not likely to have been overlooked in the old Materia Medico.: we accordingly find that it was administered in a powdered state as a remedy for the night-mare, and for the stone. Dr. Woodward states, that In Glouces tershire the powder was blown into the eyes of horses affected with watery humours ; and in Prussia it is said to have been used when pulverised In dressing wounds.
The true place of the Belemnite is among the Crphalopoda. envier and Lamarck heel arrived nt this conclusion, and they also believed that it was an internal Ahab It forms the first genus of the first family (Orthocerata) of Lamarck's first division of the Ccphalopoda, namely, the Polythalamons, or Many-Chambered, division.
Miller, in a paper in the ' Transactions of the Geological Society,' gives the following as the generic character :— " A cepludopodous (T) molluscous animal, provided with a fibrous mpathose conical shell, divided by transverse concave septa into sepa rate cells, or chambers connected by a siphunclo ; and inserted into a laminar, solid, fibrous, apathose, subeonical or fusiform body extend ing beyond it, and forming a protecting guanl or sheath." In addition to the circumstances attending the discovery at Sobel hofen of some traces of the general forum of the animal, of which the remains ordinarily found are a part, and of the ink-bag and horny laminte at Lyme and Whitby, an almost complete restoration of the Belem/mite animal was made from specimens laid open in the cutting of the Great Weatern Railway, near Chippenham in Wiltshire. The
Oxford Clay hero excavated afforded to Mr. Pratt and the late Marquis of Northampton admirable specimens of the phragmacones munl laminar plates, outlines of some of the soft parts of the body and arum, aud the form and arrangement of time hooked appendages of the arms. Indeed one of Mr. Pratt's specimens reveals the lilac* and size of the eyes, the funnel or breathing-tube, the tendinous parts of the mantle, and the lateral fins, time ink-bladder, and ink-duet. (Owen, Hunterian Lectures,' 1843.) Professor Owen, to whom the finest specimens of these discoveries were aubmitted, has found a strong resemblance between the fossil animal and the group of recent Sepioid Animals called Onychoteuth is, on whose anus are not the usual cusps, but slender horny hooks. The anus, eight in number, were equal, slender, and fund shod with hooks through all their length, alternating in a double row. The fins appear round, and a little behind the middle of the body, as in .Repiota; the caudal extremity pointed, inclosing the fibrous guard, the anterior extremity of the laminar plate, under which the ink-bag is placed, nearly tmusveree, and not arched so as from analogy with the sepiosteum might have been expected. The Belemnitio Animal—a dibranchiate eight-armed Cuttle—must in some instances, to judge from specimens of the fibrous conical extremity, have reached (anus included) four or more feet in length, and its figure appears favourable for swift motion. In the Lies deposits whole shoals of some of the species appear to have perished together, and there are found about the cones many indica tions of the presence of animal substances.
The geological distribution of time Belemnitea has been largely examined. In 1835 Professor Phillips presented to the British Association at Dublin a full account of the structures and mode of occurrence of the British species : assigning names and characters to the principal groups which occur in the Cretaceous, Upper Oolitic, Lower Oolitic, and Liassie Strata, M. d'Orbigny also publislual results perfectly accordant, derived from a full investigation, especially of the species occuring in France, It thus appears that in the first place Belemnitcs are confined as a group to the Mesozoic Strata ; that many species allied to the B. contpressus of Voltz, B. pcnecillatos of De Blainville, and B. paxillosus of Schlottheim, belong to the Lisa; that others allied to 13. ellipticus of :Miller, B. quinquesukatus of De Blainville, B. ,Ialensis of Voltz, belong to the Lower Oolite series; that others allied to B. sulcatus of Miller, IL illtdorfensis of Schlott beim, abound in the period of the Oxford Clay ; while B. 'Itermitting, B. quadratus, 13. bisteri, B. attenuants, and others now ranked as Belcmnitella by D'Orbigny, characterise the Cretaceous Strata. The investigations entered into on this subject are yet incompletely pub lished; but the reader may refer with advantage to the Treatises of De Blainvil le and Voltz, to Backhand's Bridgewater Treat ise,D'Orbigny's Palwontologie Franfaise, and to Owen's Iluntrrian Led ures. Figures illustrating several points will be found in Mantell's Medals of Creat ion, vol.