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much nearer to Bolca than it does at prefent*, if it did not 

 wholly cover that hill. But, this fuppofed, ftill the immenfe 

 number and variety of fifh that are found inclofed in the very 

 narrow compafs of thefe quarries, fo far exceeds any thing that 

 in the ordinary courfe of nature is to be met with in any fea 

 of the world, that fome uncommon caufe muft have occurred 

 to affemble them thus, whether living or dead. Submarine vol- 

 canic commotions once admitted, (and that fuch may exift the 

 well-attefted fa<i^s of new iflands produced by them, in the Ar- 

 chipelago and elfewhere, fufEciently prove,) may we not, in con- 

 formity with the other indications, account for this numerous 

 affemblage of fifh in one fpot, by fuppofing that fome new 

 eruption of this kind might have driven them from their ufuat 

 haunts, to take refuge in fome place, the moft remote they 

 could find, from the difturbing caufe ; or, having deprived them 

 of life, might have impelled or whirled their bodies into one 

 pool. That the place where they were colleded, whether living 

 or dead, and in which they were buried in their calcareous 

 inclofure, was not very remote from land, feems inferred by the 

 mixture of river fifh with thofe of the fea. This circumflance, 

 as it further proves the exiftence of rivers at that period, evinces 

 alfb that of hills raifed much above the level of the fea, from 

 whence thefe rivers, derived their fources, and probably at no 



great 



* I have already obfcrved that the neareft fea is now upwards of fifty miles. 

 from Bolca. 



