264 



of the fossils of Maestricht. " Those (he sa3's) who 

 please themselves with their systems of lakes, finding 

 here the remains of various animals, suppose that these 

 animals of the burning zones had their dwellings on the 

 sides of these lakes, where they came to quench their 

 thirst : that the peaceable stag, the fragments of whose 

 antlers are found petrified by the side of the large, the 

 medium, and the small paleotheriums, lived here in company 

 with animals equally unsociable ; and that the borders of 

 these charming fresh-water lakes, shaded by African or 

 Asiatic palms, were the delightful asylums of animals of 

 such opposite genera : for it was not possible to deny the 

 existence of these palms, said those who possessed these 

 grand ideas, since there had been found some pieces of 

 petrified trunks above, as well as beneath, the remains of 

 these quadrupeds. No more, in a word, was wanting than to 

 bring into this scene, birds who should come to drown them- 

 selves and then to become incrusted with gypsum, to com- 

 plete a zoological collection, unique in its kind ; and thus 

 to deny to the waters of the sea the power of producing 

 equally astonishing accumulations of fossil organic bodies."* 

 With the hope of ascertaining which of these hypotheses 

 had the best foundation, recourse was had to more strict 

 examinations of the fossil shells, which had been discovered 

 in these fresh- water tracts, which led to the proposal for a 

 more illustrative arrangement of them. 



M. Brard, upon examining the masses containing lymnece 

 planorbes^ and other fresh-water shells, found also shells 

 which had hitherto been considered as sea shells, a species 

 of cerithium^ for instance ; and remarks, that this circum- 

 stance had been passed silently over by Brongniart and 

 Cuvier. He adds too, that these supposed fresh-water 



* Annales du Mus. Tom. xv. p. 153. 



