or in inconsiderable mountains, always abound with them. The calcareous substances of which we are here speaking, are indisputably formed in the bowels of the deep. The sea is the laboratory whence shells and other marine matters are deduced, which are necessary for such coacervations. But, what an astonishing difference between the soft consistency of some of these animals while living, and the hardness of the masses formed from them when dead! losing their organic form, for such we must suppose to be the process, they crumble and pass into a calcareous substance; then indurate, and in such a situation, furnish an occasion for conjecture concerning the antiquity of the earth. proprety, of rendering animal substances calcareous, says Mr. Douglas, seems to be intirely undefined by any of our learned Naturalists. Must not the agent which has operated upon these substances, be in its effect similar to fire? By some chymists, this reduction has in truth been attributed to acids. An acid menstruum, indeed, continues he, has been lately discovered, which will dissolve the hardest bodies; and it is well known, that the decomposition of This fluor fluor spar, united with the vitriolic acid, greatly fermented with the assistance of fire, will, in passing through water, crystalize, and probably indurate animal bodies opposed to it. This chymical effect then may now perhaps be operating; and in the masses at the bottom of the ocean, be generating those phænomena which in future ages are to surprize, as much as their counterparts do at this moment. Nature has been at all times, and must continue to the end, sibi semper similis. From this I acknowledge, it might be inferred, that marine animals were created prior to terrene animals, otherwise why are fossil shells, why are the echini, the entrochi, the glossopetra, and the relicks of other fishes, so universally found in the deepest as well as in the most elevated strata of the earth? But from such an inference, I must entirely and unequivocally withhold my assent. I cannot admit that marine animals were created prior to man, and all other beings. I will acknowledge it appears clear, even to demonstration, that those marine shells which are found fossil, were generated, lived, and died, in the very beds where they are found, and were not brought from distant regions by a flood or floods, as some have sup posed; posed; and consequently that such beds were originally the bottom of the sea. I will also confess, that shell fish increase prodigiously; insomuch, that it is not uncommon to take away a bed of shell fish several fathoms in extent, and yet there shall be as many the ensuing, as there were found there the former year. But, in a priority of existence, however it might free one from embarrassment in establishing a theory of the earth, I shall never be able to bring my mind to acquiesce. Probability, and reason, are too strongly against it. The number of sea shells found in a fossil, or in a petrified state, is so amazing, that were it not for this very circumstance, we never should have had a proper idea of the surprizing quantities of those animals, to which the ocean gives birth; they appear in masses like mountains; in banks of 100, and 200 leagues in length; and from 50 to 60 feet thick.* Lime stone, marble, chalk, marle, &c. together with various others, owe their origin to shells. Nay more, I will venture to affirm, says Buffon, that shells are the medium employed by nature in the formation of almost all stones. Many fishes inhabit the deepest parts of the ocean, and * Buffon. and are never thrown upon the coasts; these are termed pelasgi. Those thrown upon the coasts, are called littorales. The cornu ammonis probably belongs to the former: for these animals, the cornua ammonis, are no longer found in any of our seas. Shells are sometimes found more than 1000 feet below the surface; and on the top of the mountain called Le haut de Veron, which is elevated more than seven thousand feet above the level of the sea, fragments of petrified oysters have been found. Chalk, says Monnet, occupies a space of more than 600 miles in Picardy, Boullonais, Artois, French Flanders, and Soissonnais; and often a depth of more than 400 feet. Nor is it unworthy of remark, says he, that chalky countries are almost always lower and less mountainous than other countries; that their valleys are less profound, though they are larger and more spacious. A distinction of course ought to be made between positively chalky, and simply calcareous countries. Another remark, no less worthy of attending to, he further observes, is, that chalky and calcareous substances, almost always affect an horizontal direction, whereas Schistus affects an oblique, or a perpendicular direction. How natural and satisfactory, therefore, is the conclusion of Mons. De Saussure, that it is more than than probable, though at a considerable depth below the surface of the Lake of Geneva, that the calcareous beds of Mount Jura unite to those of Saleve, and the first chain of the Alps. Elevations, consisting chiefly of clay, sand, or gravel, are called hills; those that consist chiefly of stone, are called mountains, as they are the chief repositories of minerals, and particularly of metallic ores. That the formation of these mountains preceded that of our present races of vegetables and animals, is justly inferred, as we have above noticed, from their containing no organic remains, either in the form of petrification or impression; from their bulk, extension and connexion, which seem too considerable to be ascribed to subsequent causes; and from their use and necessity for the production of rivers, without which, it is hard to suppose the world had existed at any period, since the creation of animals. Granites were This operation formed by crystalization. * probably took place when the various species of earths, already dissolved or diffused through the mighty mass of the waters, were disposed to coalesce; and among these, the siliceous must have been the first, as they are the least soluble: * Kirwan. but |