32 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



the Stones we now find in the form of Shell-fish be Lapides 

 sui generis, naturally produced by some extraordinary 

 plastic virtue, latent in the Earth or Quarries where they 

 are found ? Or whether they rather owe their Form and 

 Figuration to the Shells of the Fishes they represent, 

 brought to the places where they are now found by a 

 Deluge, Earthquake or some other such means, and then 

 being filled with Mud, Clay, and petrifying Juices, have in 

 tract of time been turned into Stones, as we now find them, 

 still retaining the same Shape in the whole, with the same 

 Lineations, Sutures, Eminences, Cavities, Orifices, Points 

 that they had whilst they were Shells ?" "In the handling 

 thereof' the author modestly disclaims any intention of 

 arriving at a "peremptory Decision''' and invites merely to 

 "a friendly Debate". Let no one be beguiled, however, 

 by these fair words, which are but the bow of a champion 

 on entering the arena. It is true the debate proceeds 

 smoothly enough, but it is also conducted according to all 

 the rules of fence and with the art of a master. Steno's 

 weakest point was the deluge, which he had to bring over 

 Tuscany in his final explanation of geologic changes. Plot, 

 with unerring instinct, makes straight for this. He considers 

 first the difficult question of the means by which these fossils, 

 if they were originally parts of living animals, could have 

 been transported from the sea to the interior of the country : 

 deluges had been suggested, but with deluges, whether 

 Noachian, Ogygian, Deucalonian or purely local or national 

 floods, Plot will have no dealings, alleging very sufficient 

 reasons for regarding all deluges as unfitted, by their very 

 nature, for the effects required ; while as to earthquakes, 

 he remarks, that to suppose " the Mountains (where such 

 Stones as most resemble them [shell-fish] are now found) 

 were heretofore low places and since raised by Earthquakes : 

 [is] a thing by no means to be believed of our Northern 

 Parts, where the Earthquakes we have at any time are so 

 inconsiderable that they scarce sometimes are perceived, 

 much less affrighten us ; unless we shall groundlessly grant, 

 that in the infancy of the World, the Earth suffered more 

 concussions, and consequently more mutations in its Stiper- 



