222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in the earth. To this same cause, as we shall see, many later authors 

 attributed the origin of all fossil remains. 



Previous to this, Anaximander, the Miletian philosopher, who was 

 born about 610 years before Christ, had expressed essentially the same 

 view. According to both Plutarch and Censorinus, Anaximander 

 taught that fishes, or animals very like fishes, sprang from heated 

 water and earth, and from these animals came the human race ; a 

 statement which can hardly be considered as anticipating the modern 

 idea of evolution, as some authors have imagined. 



The Romans added but little to the knowledge possessed by the 

 Greeks in regard to fossil remains. Pliny (23-79 a. d.), however, 

 seems to have examined such objects with interest, and in his renowned 

 work on natural history gave names to several forms. He doubtless 

 borrowed largely from Theophrastus, who wrote about three hundred 

 years before. Among the objects named by Pliny were : ^^Bucardia, 

 like to an ox's heart " ; "Brontia, resembling the head of a tortoise, 

 supposed to fall in thunderstorms " ; " Glossoptra, similar to a human 

 tongue, which does not grow in the earth, but falls from heaven while 

 the moon is eclipsed"; "the Horn of Amnion, possessing, with a 

 golden color, the figure of a ram's horn"; '■'■Ceraunia and Omhria, 

 supposed to be thunderbolts " ; " Ostracites, resembling the oyster- 

 shell" ; '^Spongites, having the form of sponge"; '•'■Phy cites, similar 

 to sea-weed or rushes." He also mentions stones resembling the teeth 

 of hippopotamus ; and says that Theophrastus speaks of fossil ivory, 

 both black and white, of bones born in the earth, and of stone.s bearing 

 the figure of bones. 



Tertullian (160 a. d.) mentions instances of the remains of sea- 

 animals on the mountains, far from the sea, but uses them as a proof 

 of the general deluge recorded in Scripture. 



During the next thirteen or fourteen centuries, fossil remains of 

 animals and plants seem to have attracted so little attention, that 

 few references are made to them by the writers of this period. Dur- 

 ing these ages of darkness, all departments of knowledge suffered 

 alike, and feeble repetitions of ideas derived from the ancients seem 

 to have been about the only contributions of that period to natural 

 science. 



Albert the Great (1205-80 a. d.), the most learned man of his time, 

 mentions that a branch of a tree was found, on which was a bird's 

 nest containing birds, the whole being solid stone. He accounted for 

 this strange phenomenon by the vlsformativa of Aristotle, an occult 

 force, which, according to the prevalent notions of the time, was ca- 

 pable of forming most of the exti-aordinary objects discovered in the 

 earth. 



Alexander ab Alexandro, of Xaples, states that he saw, in the 



