Broken Specimens Research Articles

XII. Description of a rare species of worm shells, discovered at an island lying off the north-west coast of the island of Sumatra, in the East Indies. By J. Griffiths, Esq. Commu­nicated by the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, K. B. P. R. S

A short time after a very violent earthquake that occurred in the island of Sumatra, in the year 1797, these uncommon productions of nature were discovered ; the violence of the concussion was more particularly confined to that part of the island situated on the sea coast, between two degrees of the equator north and south, and to the islands adjacent. Its effects were most severely felt at Padang ; many lives were lost, and considerable damage sustained, by a most tre­mendous inundation of the sea ; this was also experienced at the low island of Battoo, distant from the coast of Sumatra about twenty leagues. These shells were procured in a small sheltered bay, with nuddy bottom, surrounded by coral reefs, on the island of Battoo ; upon the sea receding from the bay after the inundation they were seen protruding from a bank of slightly-indurated mud, and two or three broken specimens were brought to me at Padang, by the master of a boat trading between that port and the island, for cocoa-nut oil, sea slug, &c.