PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 231 



at Freyberg, did much to advance the science of geology, and indi- 

 rectly that of fossils. He first indicated the relations of the main 

 formations to each other, and, according to his pupil, Professor Jame- 

 son, first made the highly important observation that " different for- 

 mations can be discriminated by the petrifactions they contain." 

 Moreover, that " the petrifactions contained in the oldest rocks are very 

 different from any of the species of the present time ; that the newer 

 the formation, the more do the remains approach in form to the or- 

 ganic beings of the present creation." Unfortunately, Werner pub- 

 lished little, and his doctrines were mainly disseminated by his enthu- 

 siastic pupils. 



The great contest between the Vulcanists and the Neptunists started 

 at this time, mainly through Werner, whose doctrines led to the con- 

 troversy. The comparative merits of fire and water, as agencies in 

 the formation of certain rocks, were discussed wath a heat and acri- 

 mony characteristic of the subject and the time. Werner believed in 

 the aqueous theory, while the igneous theory was especially advocated 

 by Hutton, of Edinburgh, and his illustrator, Playfair. This discus- 

 sion resulted in the advancement of descriptive geology, but the study 

 of fossils gained little thereby. 



The "Protogrea" of Leibnitz, the great mathematician, published 

 in 1749, about thirty years after his death, was a work of much merit. 

 This author supposed that the earth had gradually cooled from a state 

 of igneous fusion, and was subsequently covered with water. The 

 subsidence of the lower part of the earth, the deposits of sedimentary 

 strata from inundations, and their inturati^, as well as other changes, 

 followed. All this he supposed to have been accomplished in a period 

 of six natural days. In the same work Leibnitz shows that he had 

 examined fossils with considerable care. 



Linnaeus (1707-1778), the famous Swedish botanist, and the founder 

 of the modern system of nomenclature in natural history, confined his 

 attention almost entirely to the living forms. Although he was fa- 

 miliar with the literature of fossil remains, and had collected them 

 himself, he did not include them in his system of plants and animals, 

 but kept them separate, with the minerals ; hence he did little directly 

 to advance this branch of science. 



During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the belief that 

 fossil remains were deposited by the deluge sensibly declined, and the 

 dawn of a new era gradually appeared. Let us pause for a moment 

 here, and see what real progress had been made — what foundation had 

 been laid on which to estoblish a science of fossil remains. 



The true nature of these objects had now been clearly determined. 

 They were the remains of animals and plants. Most of them certainly 

 were not the relics of the Mosaic deluge, but had been deposited long 

 before, part in fresh water and part in the sea. Some indicated a mild 



