230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the advancement of science, even up to the middle of the eighteenth 

 century. 



Another important work appeared in France about this time, Bour- 

 guet's "Traite des Petrifactions," published in 1758, which is well 

 illustrated with faithful plates. In England, a discourse on earth- 

 quakes, by Dr. Robert Hooke, was published in 1705. This author 

 held some views in advance of his time, and maintained that figured 

 stones were " really the several bodies they represent or the moldings 

 of them petrified, and not, as some have imagined, a lusus naturae, 

 sporting herself in the needless formation of useless things." He an- 

 ticipates one important conclusion from fossils, Avhen he states that 

 " though it must be very difficult to read them and to raise a chronol- 

 ogy out of them, and to state the intervals of time wherein such or 

 such catastrophes and mutations have happened, yet it is not impos- 

 sible." He also states that fossil turtles, and such large Ammonites 

 as are found in Portland, seem to have been the productions of hotter 

 countries, and hence it is necessary to suppose that England once lay 

 under the sea within the torrid zone. He seems to have suspected 

 that some of the fossils of England belonged to extinct species, but 

 thought they might possibly bo found living in the bottom of distant 

 oceans. 



Dr. Woodward's "Natural History of the Fossils of England" 

 appeared in 1729. This work was based on a systematic collection of 

 fossils which he had brought together, and which he subsequently 

 bequeathed to the University of Cambridge, where it is still preserved, 

 with his arrangement carefully retained. The descriptive part of this 

 work is interesting, but his conclusions are made to coincide strictly 

 with the Scriptural account of the creation and deluge. He had pre- 

 viously stated, in another work, that he believed " the whole terres- 

 trial globe to have been taken to pieces and dissolved at the flood, and 

 the strata to have settled down from this promiscuous mass." In sup- 

 port of this view, he stated that "marine bodies are lodged in the 

 strata according to the order of their gravity, the heavier shells in 

 stones, the lighter in chalk, and so of the rest." * 



The most important work on fossils published in Germany at this 

 time was that of George Wolfgang Knorr, which was continued after 

 his death by Walch. This work consisted of four folio volumes, with 

 many plates, and was printed at Nuremberg, 1755-'73. A large num- 

 ber of fossils were accurately figured and described, and the work is 

 one of permanent value.f A French translation of this work appeared 

 in 1767-'78. Burton's " Oryctographie de Bruxelles," 1784, contains 

 figures and descriptions of fossils found in Belgium. 



Abraham Gottlieb Werner (1750-1817), Professor of Mineralogy 



* " Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth," 1695. 



f " Lapides ex celeberr. viror. sententia diluvii universalis testes, quos in ordines ac 

 species distribuit, suis coloribus expremit," etc. 272 Tab. 1755-"73. 



