Among the many singular discoveries made in the ruins of Pompeii, and deposited in that most interesting of Museums, the Museo Borbonico, in the city of Naples, are a variety of shells, principally species now found in the Mediterranean Sea, and so far of interest as an illustration of the persistency of certain known species within the historic period, no difference whatever being observable between the disinterred and living specimens. On a close examination I observed, besides those from the neighbouring seas, species from distant countries, for example:—Conus textilis, Triton femorale, Meleagrina margaritifera (Pearl Oyster), species only found in the Indian and Eastern seas. I think, therefore, that this may be regarded as part of a Natural History collection. Assuming the truth of this conjecture, its antiquity is without a precedent. Did the original proprietor form one of a Natural History Society of Pompeii, of which the distinguished Naturalist Pliny, who perished at Pompeii, was a member? It would also be curious, in these days of research for priority of names, to know how they were described. Such a discovery might disturb existing nomenclature, and increase the perplexity already felt in naming collections. But laying aside fanciful conjectures, the collection is further instructive from the condition and perfect preservation in which the specimens are found, after an interment of nearly 1,800 years. Besides the collection in the Museo Borbonico, there is still standing in a villa at Pompeii, a fountain decorated with shells of the Mediterranean, one species of which, viz. Murex Brandaris, retains its colour and general freshness and is not to be distinguished from living examples; while the same species, from the Italian Tertiaries, are colourless and in that friable condition characteristic of shells even of the most recent geological period, pointing, like other discoveries, to the great antiquity of the most modern Tertiary deposits as compared with the era of the human race.