knowledge when engaged in a mineralogical examination for the Earl of Moira, in the vicinity of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire it will evince how cautious we ought to be in drawing general conclusions in geology, from single facts. A thick bed of coal belonging to his lordship, at a place called Ashby Wolds, is worked at the depth of two hundred and twenty-five yards; it is covered with various strata of iron-stone, coal, and solid sandstone. On an estate adjoining to his lordship's manor, in the same bed of coal (which is ninety-seven yards below the surface), the entire skeleton of a man was found imbedded. No appearance existed of any former sinking for coal; but the proprietor ordered passages to be cut in different directions, until the indication of a former pit was discovered, though the coal had not been worked. Into this pit the body must have fallen, and been pressed and consolidated in the loose coal by an incumbent column of water, previously to the falling in of the sides of the pit.

The imperfect skeleton of a woman, imbedded in a kind of calcareous sandstone, brought from Guadaloupe, and exhibited in the British Museum, may appear to invalidate what was asserted in the first edition of this work, that no instances have been known of human bones being found in regular stratified rocks, nor even in undisturbed alluvial ground, where the remains of extinct species of quadrupeds are not unfrequently met with.* Due attention to all the circumstances, will reconcile that assertion with the present fact. The skeleton from Guadaloupe is described as having been found on the shore, below the high-water mark, among calcareous rocks formed of madrepores, and not far from the volcano called the Souffriere. The bones are not petrified, but preserve the usual constituents of fresh bone, and were rather soft when first exposed to the air. Specimens of the stone which I have in my possession, that were chipped from the same block, present, when examined with a lens, the appearance of smooth grains, consisting of rounded fragments of shells and coral, aggregated and united without any visible cement.

We have an example of a similar formation of calcareous sandstone on the north coast of Cornwall, composed entirely of minute

* Since the publication of the first and second editions of this work, I have seen, in the possession of a gentleman at Plymouth, one of two human skulls that were found in digging a stream work, forty or fifty feet below the level of the river at Carnon in Cornwall. Nuts, and the horns of some animal allied to the stag, were discovered in the same situation.-In a note which I made at the time, (1816,) it is stated, that the forehead was remarkably low and narrow, and the part of the skull which contained the cerebellum unusually prominent. That these skulls were ancient there can be little doubt, but there are no sufficient data to enable us to approximate to the period of their deposition.

The bone was not mineralised, though very hard. The absence or extreme rarity of human bones in these beds of gravel and clay, or in caves that contain the remains of large land quadrupeds, is far more extraordinary than their nonoccurrence in the regular strata that cover our present continents.

fragments of shells. In the Arundel papers, there is mention of an inundation of sand, in the twelfth century which covered a great part of the coast near St. Ives: it is also known by oral tradition, that whole farms have been overwhelmed at a period not very remote; and at this very day, upon the shifting of the sands by high winds, the tops of houses may occasionally be seen. In several parts of the coast, this sand is seen passing into the state of compact rock, very difficult to break; and it is even used for building-stone. Entire shells of land snails and fragments of slate occasionally occur in it.* When I was in the county I examined numerous specimens of the rock with a lens, and compared them with a specimen of the Gaudaloupe sandstone that I had with me, and they appeared closely to resemble each other. Dr. Paris, in an interesting paper read to the Geological Society of Cornwall, ascribes the consolidation of the sandstone to the infiltration of water containing iron, from the decomposing slate-rocks in the vicinity. Instances of the consolidation of beds of loose sand are common on the coast of Sicily. cannot therefore excite surprise, that in a volcanic island like Guadaloupe, subject to violent convulsions from earthquakes, inundations, and impetuous hurricanes, human bodies should occasionally be discovered, that have been enveloped in driving sands, which have become subsequently indurated. The situation of this skeleton near the sea-shore, the state of the bones, and the nature of the stone in which they are imbedded, take away the probability of their high antiquity.

It

In the Institutes of Menu, which according to Sir William Jones are nearly as ancient as the writings of Moses, the account of the six days of creation so closely resembles that given in Genesis,† that it is scarcely possible to doubt its being derived from the same patriarchal communication. There is, however, a particular definition given of the word day as applied to the creation, and it is expressly stated to be a period of several thousand years. If this interpretation be admitted, it will remove the difficulty that some have felt in reconciling the epochs of creation with the six days mentioned by Moses. The six days in which Creative Energy renovated the globe and called into existence different classes of animals, will imply six successive epochs of indefinite duration. The absence of human bones in stratified rocks or in undisturbed beds of gravel or clay, indicates that man, the most perfect of terrestrial beings, was not crea

* See Guide to Mount's Bay and the Land's End.

The discoveries in astronomy which proved the diurnal and annual motions of the earth, were for some time warmly opposed as being at variance with the motion of the sun and moon, and the motionless stability of the earth which the sacred writings describe. We should not, however, admire the judgment of the writer, who in the present day should publish a scriptural astronomy, in opposiiton to the Copernican system. The sacred writers describe natural objects as they appear to the senses, and do not teach systems of philosophy.

ted till after those great revolutions which buried many different orders and entire genera of animals deep under the present surface of the earth. That man is the latest tenant of the globe, is confirmed by the oldest records or traditions that exist of the origin of the hu

man race.

The great convulsions which have, at distant periods, changed the ancient surface of the globe, and reduced it from a chaotic to its present habitable state, were not, it is reasonable to believe, effected by the blind fury of tumultuous and conflicting elements, but were the result of determined laws, directed by the same wisdom which regulates every part of the external universe. Compared with the ephemeral existence of man on the earth, the epochs of these changes may appear of almost inconceivable duration; but we are expressly told, "that with the Creator a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years."

CHAPTER II.

ON PETRIFACTIONS, OR FOSSIL, ANIMAL, AND VEGETABLE REMAINS.

Opinions of early Naturalists respecting Petrifactions.-On the Process called Petrifaction.-Experiment of Dr. Jenner on the Petrifaction of recent Bones.Living Reptiles occasionally found in solid Stone.-Remarkable Difference in the Condition of Fossil Remains in adjacent Strata; Instance of this at Westbury Cliff, Gloucestershire.-The four grand Divisions of the Animal Kingdom.-Distribution of the Remains of certain Classes and Orders of Animals in each Division through the different Rock Formations.-Fossil Elephant proved to have been an Inhabitant of cold Climates.-Remains of Monkeys hitherto undiscovered in a Fossil State.-On Vegetable Petrifactions in the Transition, Secondary, and Tertiary Strata, supposed to prove the former high Temperature of the Globe in Northern Latitudes.-Observations on Fossil Organic Remains, as serving to identify Strata in distant Countries.

If it had been predicted a century ago, that a volume would be discovered, containing the natural history of the earliest inhabitants of the globe, who flourished and perished before the creation of man, with distinct impressions of the forms of genera of animals no longer existing on the earth,-what curiosity would have been excited to see this wonderful volume; how anxiously would Philosophers have waited for the discovery! But this volume is now discovered; it is the Volume of Nature, rich with the spoils of primeval ages, unfolded to the view of the attentive observer, in the strata that compose the crust of the globe. The numerous and varied forms of organic beings, whose remains are there distinctly preserved, sometimes differ so much in structure from any known genera of animals, that we can scarcely hazard any probable conjectures respecting their modes of existence. Nor do we discover merely the forms of unknown animals in the different strata, we also learn the order of succession in which they first appeared on the globe.

It is only within a comparatively short period, that these fossil organic remains have engaged the attention of naturalists. It is true that in remote times, the occasional discovery of shells and bones of large animals imbedded in rocks, did not escape the attention of philosophers; but, the shells were supposed to belong to species now living, and the bones to a gigantic race of men, that perished during some great inundation, or had been buried by earthquakes. Other hypotheses, equally remote from truth, serve to show how little attention had been bestowed on this department of Natural History. The celebrated botanist, Tournefort, from the regularity of form in many fossil remains, was induced to believe that they were stones that grew and vegetated from seeds. "How could the Cornu Ammonis," he observes, "which is constantly in the figure of a volute, be formed without a seed containing the same structure in the small,

as in the larger forms? Who moulded it so artfully, and where are the moulds ?"

As fossil organic remains, particularly shells and zoophytes, are found, many hundred and even thousand feet below the present surface of the earth, the first enquiry that naturally suggests itself is, how did they come there? It is impossible that the animals when living, or their exuvia when dead, could pass through such vast depths of solid rock. A few of them might fall into vertical fissures, and remain there, but they could never in this way enter into strata composed almost entirely of organic remains. Beside, the strata now deep under the dry ground are filled chiefly with the remains of marine animals; nor do we generally find these animal remains confusedly aggregated; different genera or species occupy particular strata, or are associated with certain genera or species of the same class, and never with others. It is therefore evident that they were not brought into their present situations by vast inundations, and buried under the earthy matter which a subsequent inundation cast over them. Neither could zoophytes, fish, or large reptiles, or the inhabitants of bivalve or univalve shells, have lived and flourished in the midst of solid stone. We are therefore led to the conclusion, that each stratum which contains these organic remains was once the uppermost covering of the globe, and that the animals, for the most part, lived and died near where their bones or shells are now found, and were covered by successive depositions of strata, on which following races of living beings flourished, and in like manner left their remains.

* Instances of reptiles found living in the midst of solid stone sometimes occur. At the colliery on Rothwell Haigh near Leeds, a living lizard or newt was found in a bed of coal at the depth of 180 yards from the surface. I saw it in the year 1819 soon after its discovery; it was preserved in spirits, and was about five inches in length. I could not perceive that it differed from the living species. The animal had probably crept into the mine along one of the levels that drain off the water, or down the sides of the shaft. The specimen is now in the possession of the Rev. A. Sharp, Vicar of Wakefield. In all instances where toads have been found in solid stone, it is reasonable to believe that they entered through fissures that have been subsequently closed. That these animals will live without food for a great number of years, is proved by the following circumstance.

The late Sir Thomas Blacket, of Britton Hall in Yorkshire, had one cellar which was opened only once a year, as it contained some particularly choice wine which was never brought to table but on the annual celebration of his birthday, which was on the 21st of December, or St. Thomas's day. The butler, when taking out the wine, observed a small toad crawling along the stone floor. He placed the toad under a wine bottle, and thought no more of it till he went into the cellar the following year, when, on removing the bottle, he was much surprised to see the toad immediately leap. This circumstance he mentioned to Sir Thomas, who descended with his visiters into the cellar to look at the toad, after which the bottle was replaced, and the poor animal was kept a close prisoner till the succeeding year, when he was again uncovered, and found alive as before. The same annual experiment was continued for more than twenty-five years, when the wine was exhausted, the cellar cleared, and the toad, who was still living, was thrown out of doors. Having heard of this circumstance, from a person who had lived in the family part of the time, I questioned the old butler respecting it, and he fully confirmed the truth of the story.