226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mains, and by dissecting a shark from the Mediterranean, proved that 

 its teeth were identical with some found fossil in Tuscany. He also 

 compared the fossil shells found in Italy with existing species, and 

 pointed out their resemblance. In the same work, Steno expressed 

 some very important views in regard to the different kinds of strata, 

 and their origin, and first placed on record the important fact that the 

 oldest rocks contain no fossils. 



Scilla, the Sicilian painter, published in 1670 a work on the fossils 

 of Calabria, well illustrated. Pie is very severe against those who 

 doubted the organic origin of fossils, but is inclined to consider them 

 relics of the Mosaic deluge. 



Another instance of the power of the lusus naturcB theory, even at 

 the close of the seventeenth century, deserves mention. In the year 

 1696 the skeleton of a fossil elephant was dug up at Tonna, near 

 Gotha, in Germany, and was described by William Ernest Tentzel, a 

 teacher in the Gotha Gymnasium. He declared the bones to be the 

 remains of an animal that had lived long before. The medical facul- 

 ty in Gotha, however, considered the subject, and decided oificially 

 that this specimen was only a freak of Nature. 



Besides the authors I have mentioned, there were many others who 

 wrote about fossil remains before the close of the seventeenth century, 

 and took part in the general discussion as to their nature and origin. 

 During the progress of this controversy the most fantastic theories 

 were broached and stoutly defended, and, although refuted from time 

 to time by a few clear-headed men, continually sprang up anew, in the 

 same or modified forms. The influence of Aristotle's views of equiv- 

 ocal generation, and especially the scholastic tendency to disputation, 

 so prevalent during the middle ages, had contributed largely to the 

 retardation of progress, and yet a real advance in knowledge had been 

 made. The long contest in regard to the nature of fossil remains was 

 essentially over, for the more intelligent opinion at the time now ac- 

 knowledged that these objects were not mere " sports of Nature," but 

 had once been endowed with life. At this point, therefore, the first 

 period in the history of paleontology, as I have indicated it, may ap- 

 propriately end. 



It is true that, later still, the old exploded errors about the plastic 

 force and fermentation were from time to time revived, as they have 

 been almost to the present day ; but learned men, with few excep- 

 tions, no longer seriously questioned that fossils were real organisms, 

 as the ancients had once believed. The many collections of fossils 

 that had been brought together, and the illustrated works that had 

 been published about them, were a foundation for greater progress, 

 and, with the eighteenth century, the second period in the history of 

 paleontology began. 



The main characteristic of this period was the general belief that 



