NATURAL HISTORY. 



319 



horse ; bat those from Germany are 

 mostly carnivorous. From these facts 

 we should be inclined to suppose, 

 that their accumulation did notariiie 

 from any instinctive mode of living, 

 as the same mode could not suit 

 both carnivorous and herbivorous 

 animals. 

 , In considering animals respecting 

 their situation upon the globe, there 

 are many which are peculiar to par- 

 ticular climates, and others that are 

 less confined, as herrings, mackerel, 

 and salmon ; others again, which 

 probably move over the whole ex- 

 tent of the sea, as the shark, por- 

 pus, and whale tribe ; while many 

 shell-fish must be confined to one 

 spot. If the sea had not shifted its 

 situation more than once, and was 

 to leave the land in a very short 

 time, then we could determine what 

 the climate had formerly been by 

 the extraneous fossils of the station- 

 ary animals, for those only would 

 be fouad mixed with those of pas- 

 sage ; but if the sea moves from one 

 place to another slowly, then the 

 remains of animals of different cli- 

 mates may be mixed, by those of 

 one climate moving over those of 

 another, dying, and being fos-iilized ; 

 but this I am afraid cannot be made 

 out. By the fossils we may, how- 

 ever, have some idea how the bones 

 of the i and animals fossilized ma t be 

 disposed with respect to those of the 

 sea. 



If the sea should have occupied 

 any space that never had been dry 

 land prior to the sea's being there, 

 the extraneous fossils can only he 

 those of sea-animals ; but each part 

 will have its particular kind of those 

 that are stationary mixed with a fe^v 

 of the amphibia, and of sea-birds, in 

 those parts that were the skirts of 

 the sea. I shall suppose iliat when 



the sea left tliis place it moved ovef 

 land where both vegetables and 

 land-animals had existed, the bones 

 of which will be fossilized, as also 

 those of the sea animals; and if the 

 sea continued long here, which there 

 is reason to believe, then those mix- 

 ed extraneous fossils will be covered 

 with those of sea-animals. Now 

 if the sea should again move and 

 abandon this situation, then we 

 should find the laud and sea fossils 

 above-mentioned disposed in this 

 order ; and as we begin to discover 

 extraneous fossils in a contrary di- 

 rection to their formation, we shall 

 first find a stratum of those ani- 

 mals peculiar to the sea, which were 

 the last formed, and under it one of 

 vegetables and land animals, which 

 were there before they were cover- 

 ed by the sea, and among them 

 those of the sea, and under this the 

 common earth. Those peculiar to 

 the sea will be in depth in propor- 

 tion to the time of the sea's residence 

 andothercircumstai;ces,as currents, 

 tides, &c. 



From a succession of such shiff- 

 ings of the situation of the sea, we 

 may have a stratunl of marine ex- 

 traneous fossils, one of earth, mixed 

 probably with vegetables and bones 

 of land animals, a stratum of ter- 

 restrial extraneous fossils, then one 

 of marine production; but from the 

 sea carrying its inhabitants along 

 with it, wherever there are those of 

 land-animals there will also be a 

 mixture of marine ones J and from 

 the sea commonly remAining thou- 

 sands of years in nearly the same 

 situation, we have marine fossils 

 unmixed with any others. 



All operations respecting the 

 growth or decomoosition of animal 

 and vegetable substances go on 

 more readily on the surface of the 



