So, too, in J. Walcott (1779) we read that "the Belemnite receives its English name thunder-bolt from the vulgar, who suppose it to be indeed the darts of heaven."[1] The earliest mention, however, that I have been able to find is in R. Plot,[2] (1677), who says that from their form by all naturalists they are called belemnites, "from the Greek word βέλεμνον telum, which indeed some of them represent pretty well."
Again, J. H. Macalister writes[3]: —
"Mr. A. C. G. Cameron has informed me that Belemnites from the Oxford clay, south of Bedford, are ground up and used for sore eyes, also that when pounded, they are considered by the villagers of Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire an excellent cure for rheumatism."
Again, in Gloucestershire belemnites from the Lias were used to cure watery affections of the eyes of the horse; the fossil was pulverized and the dust blown into the animal's eyes.[4]
Turning to the extreme south of England, Mr. Lovett states that at Lyme Regis the belemnites of the Lias are hardly ever called by any other name but thunderbolts, and adds that it is a curious fact that in localities where the belemnites are not found the people, if shown any such things, not only do not regard them as thunderbolts, but ignore them as being "nothing."
Beyond remarking that, according to Parkinson,[5] they were also called "Devil's fingers," I shall not here follow up this question of the belemnite beliefs, but I may remark
- ↑ Descriptions and Figures of Petrifactions Found in the Qnarries, Gravel-Pits, etc. Near Bath, p. 39.
- ↑ Op. cit., p. 93.
- ↑ Geologist, vol. iv., p. 215.
- ↑ J. Woodward, An Attempt towards the Natural History of Fossils etc. (1729), vol. i. p. 109.
- ↑ Parkinson, op. cit., vol. iii., p. 122, where he also remarks that they are also called lapides lyncis, owing to their supposed origin from the urine of the lynx, and cites Ovid, Metamorphoses, lib. xv., v. 413.
