By G. Poulett Scrope, Esq., U.P. 91 
as sediment at the bottom of the ocean or of some lake, or in the 
beds of rivers, (whence they, are said to be of Aqueous origin); and 
the harder kinds owe this quality either to a kind of setting (or 
imperfect crystallization) like that of concrete, or in some cases 
probably to the enormous pressure to which they have been sub- 
jected, especially after being lifted out of the water, in others it 
would seem, to the baking influence of the heated igneous erystal- 
line rock below them. 
The aqueous origin of even the most solid stratified rocks is 
proved by their being often made up of water-worn pebbles, gravel, 
sand, or matter like hardened mud or clay, arranged in layers, 
sometimes even ripple-marked, like those which the sea or rivers 
form before our eyes. It is also still more conclusively shewn, 
perhaps, by their containing great numbers of fossil shells, bones 
of fish or other animals, marine, freshwater, or terrestrial, and the 
remains of vegetable matter likewise, such as rivers still carry down 
in great quantity into lakes or seas. These ‘organic remains’ have 
also been found most serviceable as a test of the age in the history 
of the world at which the several strata where they are met with 
were deposited. Because it has been found by a long experience 
and very widely extended researches, to the satisfaction of all geo- 
logists, that the strata which lie lowest (and therefore must be the 
oldest, having been necessarily deposited at the bottom of the 
waters, before those which lie above them) contain the remains of 
races of animals now altogether extinct, and which are farther re- 
moved in character from any now living upon the earth than those 
found in the upper beds; while these approach more nearly to ex- 
isting races, or shew a larger number of genera and species belong- 
ing to existing races, in proportion as they appear from their 
position to be of more recent formation. On this kind of evidence 
i.e. according to the character of the organic remains contained in 
them, which has been called Paleontological, (Paleontology being 
the study of ancient races of vegetable or animal life), geologists 
are now generally agreed to class the various stratified rocks which 
are found more or less over the whole globe, rather than according 
to their mineralogical composition or aspect. And upon this evi- 
