[ ^92 ] 



I fhall now venture to lay before the Academy on tliis fubjecSt, 

 I can therefore fay with confidence, is purely the refult of in- 

 ferences fuggcfted to my mind by the appearances of the objedts 

 ihemfelves, and their feveral concomitant circumftances. 



I SUPPOSE no one that has attended to the defcription of 

 thefe foflils, and ftill Icfs that has examined the fpecimens them- 

 felves, will doubt that the forms which they exhibit are the 

 remains of once adually exifting fifh. 



But thefe, it fhould be well remarked, difier effentially from 

 the forms of fifh that are frequently found in .argillaceous fchif- 

 tus, as well as from what are commonly called petrifadtions of 

 {hells, &c. which abound in moft lime-ftone ftrata. In this 

 latter cafe we have feldom more than the mere external fhapes 

 preferved ; the fubftance is wholly changed, and what reihains 



refembles,. 



tion to tlie attention of the Academy, I cannot pofitively aflert, my information in 

 thefe fubjefts being very limited ; I can only fay, that nothing of the icind has 

 fallen within my obfervation. I hays' confulted fome modern Italian writers of 

 mineralogy and natural hiftory, but find them very concift in what they fay of thefe 

 fifh. P. Petrini, the very worthy mineralogical profeffor of the Collegio Nazzareno 

 at Rome, has an appendix to the 2d vol. of his Gabinetto Mineralogico del Collegio 

 Nazzareno, publifhed at Rome in 1 792, which treats exprefsly of petrified remains 

 of animal and vegetable fubftances, but contains nothing relative to thefe. Signior 

 Bozza, in his paper above quoted, which is entitled, Delia Rivoluzione fofferta dal 

 Globo Terraqueo, fpeaks only of remote and general caufes : And the Marquis 

 Gazola, to whom I mentioned at Verona the outlines of the explanation here 

 attempted, immediately after my vifit to Bolca, feemed wholly unacquainted with 

 any thing fimilar. Thefe circumflances, particularly the laft, led me to prefume 

 that the ideas here given had not been anticipated, and emboldened me, on that, 

 ground, to fubmit them to the Academy. 



