THE HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AT OXFORD. 33 



ficies, than it has done ever since the Recordsof Time " : — 

 an argument that cannot but appeal to every orthodox 

 Uniformitarian. 



Having thus shown an antecedent improbability against 

 the view that fossils are the remains of organisms, he pro- 

 ceeds to attack the enemy in his stronghold. It is affirmed, 

 Dr. Plot remarks, that " these Formed Stones are many of 

 them in all respects, like the living Shell-fish ; thus says 

 Boccone, the Herrisoris Spatagi of Stone, the Cornua 

 Ammonis or Nautili Lapides have the very Marks, 

 Characters, Eminences, Cavities and all other parts alike, 

 with the true living Nautili, and Herrisons Spatagi, . . . 

 which proves, says he, the Body changed to have been the very 

 same thing with that which is living. But I must tell him, it 

 does but very weakly, all Arguments drawn a similitudine, 

 beine the most inefficacious of all others, such rather illus- 

 trating than proving, rather perswading than compelling 

 an Adversary s Assent. For how many hundred things are 

 there in the World, that have some Resemblance of one 

 Another, which no Body will offer to think were ever the 

 same, and particularly among some other Formed Stones 

 hereafter to be mentioned. Such are the Stones Otites^ or 

 Auriculares, several sorts of Cardites, which though they 

 as exactly resemble those parts of Men, from whence they 

 have their Names as any Conchites or Fchinites do those 

 Shell-fish : yet no Man that I ever heard of, so much as 

 dreamed that these were ever the real parts of Men, in pro- 

 cess of time thus turned into Stone. As well might we say 

 that our Kettering Stone in Northamptonshire, here in 

 England, was once nothing else but the spawn of Lobsters : 

 than which that I know of, there is nothing more like." If 

 I might express an opinion, I should say, that as it stands, 

 this is a very excellent argument : but it would have been 

 open to an opponent to reply that it is vitiated by one 

 serious mis-statement : the simulacra of human organs 

 which are referred to as Otites and Cardites do not as 

 exactly resemble those organs, as the Conchites and 

 Echinites do those shell-fish : in the latter case the re- 

 semblances are far more numerous and precise, and are, if 



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