74 



AViitings, especially where they find basalts covered by cal- 

 careous strata. •■: • - , 



Of INIr. .S.t. Fond I know little, but that he was the 

 friend and correspondent of the Duke de Rochefoucault 

 and Mr. Desniarest, as well as of Mr. Dolomieu. Of the 

 latter we have better information. We knoM' that he Avas 

 an illuminatus of the iirst order; a member of the Lodge 

 of the Nine Sisters, with Rochefoucault, Brissot, Condor- 

 -cet, Garat, Pethion, Danton, Bailly, and other leaders of 

 -the anti-christian and anti-monarchical conspiracy. We 

 find him active in revolutionizing Malta, and imprisoned 

 for similar attempts at Naples. 



But, whatever may have been the ultimate object of 

 .these gentlemen and their associates; they pursued it 

 with such activit}', that they inspired their followers with 

 ithe same zeal for making proselytes, which they possessed 

 jthemselves; and the same contempt for truth, of which 

 their leader, Mr. Desmarest, had set them so striking an 

 example. 



Though I do not suspect the naturalists of the British 

 Isles, to be, in the least, privy to this conspiracy; yet, 

 some of them seem to have adopted the French mode of 

 supporting favourite theories; and to have modelled the 

 fact)> they met with, so as to make them serve their pur- 

 pose. 



One of these gentlemen, indeed, Mr. Whitehurst, a mi- 

 peralogist of some eminence, seems to have improved upon 



the 



