Nicolas Steno, Leiden 1663, (archive.org, 1916 edition)

In the first page of his pocketbook, Lister noted ’8ber. lib Steno: pd gbr. 3d’.

8ber is October, and this phrase could possibly be a record of payment of 3d for a book by Nicolas Steensen or Steno (1638-1686). Steno wrote a chorographic work of Tuscany, the Prodromus (1668), which was a bold assertion of the organic origin of fossils and how they came to be enclosed in layers of rock. He described a process in which juices seeped through cracks in the earth that were caused by the movement of geological strata. This juice dissolved mineral salts, penetrating interstices of animal shells, eventually replacing the shells with a stony substance.

Lister would meet with Steno in Montpellier, and worked with him in a series of dissections of an ox’s head.