to, whether the waters covered them, or not. Examine the highest eminences of the earth; and they all, with one accord, produce the spoil of the ocean, depofited upon them on that occafion; the fhells and fkeletons of fea-fifh, and fea-monsters of all kinds. The Alps, the Appenine, the Pyrenees, Libanus, and Atlas, and Ararat; every mountain of every region under heaven, where search hath been made, from Japan to Mexico, all confpire in one uniform, univerfal proof, that they all had the fea fpread over their higheft fummits, Search the earth: You fhall find the mousedeer, a native of America, buried in Ireland; elephants, natives of Asia and Africa, buried in the midst of England. (We may add, as we have seen above, in America likewife.) Crocodiles, natives of the Nile, in the heart of Germany; fhell fifh, never known in any but the American feas, together with the entire fkeletons of whales, in the most inland regions of England; trees of vast dimenfions, with their roots and tops; and fome alfo, with leaves and fruit, at the

bottom

bottoms of mines and marls (if fome of these had not been lodged there before, by the earthquake at the fall); and that too, in regions, where no tree of that kind was ever known to grow; nay, where it is demonftrably impoffible they could grow: Nay more, trees and plants of various kinds, which are not known to grow in any region under heaven *.”

It was late before this branch of natural science began to be cultivated; aud much later before it gained but little credit, having met with great neglect for a long time after the revival of other parts of learning; and even with fome oppofition. It was not till near the latter end of the fixteenth century, that a Potter, who had no advantages of learning, had the hardinefs to maintain, in the face of all the doctors of Paris, that foffil fhells were the real fhells of fishes, that had been depofited by the fea, in the places where they

*Revel. Exam. Vol. I. p. 192, from Woodward's Natural History of the Earth, enlarged, and the Defence of it. Bochart, &c.

were

were fince found; and that animals, and fish especially, had given to figured ftones all their differences of figure. After this, the system of this natural philofopher, as he might justly be called, having owed his philofophy to nature alone, lay dormant for near a century; when it was revived with fpirit, by feveral learned perfons; and profecuted with such success, that the most experienced philofophers are now agreed upon it fo well, that it seems to be incontestably established. The author's name was Barnard Palissy *.

This fyftem did not meet with fuch general approbation, without being thoroughly canvaffed. A learned man of our own nation, Dr. Plot, and fome other naturalifts, conjectured that these fuppofed fhells, and teeth of fish, bones of animals, intire and partial vegetables, and other ftrange appearances, found on the tops of the highest mountains, and in the bowels of the earth, and sometimes incorporated with

*M. Buffon, Theorie de la terre, Art. viii. p. 97%

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1

chalk,

1

chalk, ftone, marble, and other heterogeneous fubftances, were only fome mock productions of nature, or originally formed in the places where they are found, by fome plaftic power of falts, or other minerals; for this reason, among feveral others, that living animals, or fifh, have been found in fome of those foffil fhells; and that fome fuch marine fubftances have been formed and generated in human bodies; and therefore it is fuppofed, they were formed by a fpermatic principle, as fish spawn, received into the chinks, and other meatus's of the earth; and falling down in rains, &c. But these instances are too rare, and too equivocal to form any general fyftem upon, efpecially one of fuch a nature: Nor, as it hath been obferved, can by any means be admitted with regard to many of thefe foffils; fuch as the glossopetræ, or teeth of the shark, and the other bones of larger creatures; however difputable the cafe might be, with regard to fome fhell fish, whose fhells might poffibly preferve them in the earth; and with regard to fubterraneous

woods,

woods, and fofiil trees, especially of fuch as are of the growth of those parts where they are found; which might be accounted for from other caufes. But those of a quite foreign growth, which are never feen growing in the climate, or country where found, cannot be prefumed to be brought there, any otherwise than by the deluge.

This opinion therefore, that foffil and putrified shells, and all fuch like phenomena, are mere lufus naturæ, ftands upon fuch flender grounds, that it cannot be fupported; and I think it is now in a manner quite given up. It is indeed fuch, as, if pursued to its utmost confequences, would terminate in atheism. Dr. Woodward hath thoroughly fifted, and investigated all these appearances; and hath found, and proved them to be in reality, what they seem to be: And no one, that I know of, hath contefted it with him. We may look upon them therefore, as fo many monuments of the deluge; as medals ftruck on this memorable occafion.

But