Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14849

    Astroites (star stones)

    Date
    19 January 1674
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p14a
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 307mm
    width (page): 195mm
    Subject
    Earth Sciences
       > Palaeontology
          > Fossils
    Content object
    nature
       > fossil
    Description
    17 figures on paper slips all stuck to one page of paper.
    Descriptions of the figures in the accompanying letter.

    Figure of astroites, or star stones, brought to Martin Lister from Bugthorpe and Leppington, as described in his letter to Henry Oldenburg dated 19 January 1674, York.

    The letter was read on 22 January 1674 and printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 10, no. 112 (1675), pp. 274-79, with figures in tab. 2.

    There is a copy of this figure at LBC/7/022a.
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 22 January 1674, ‘Mr. Oldenburg read a letter to him from Mr. Lister, dated 7th January, 1673/4, concerning an old fungus subterraneus, of a bituminous nature, found in a rocky limestone ground in Derbyshire; as also an uncommon mineral liquor, white, resembling cream, found at the bottom of a coalpit, and in iron-mines, in great quantity’ (Birch 3:122).

    Printed in M. Lister, 'Observations of the astroites or star stones', Phil. Trans. vol. 10, no. 112 (March 1675), pp. 274-79, tab. 2
    Related fellows
    Martin Lister (1639 - 1712, British) , Physician
    Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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