152 Dr. Fitton's Notes on the Hhtdiy of English Geology. 



add, that we are far from supposing Mr. Smith to have been' 

 acquainted with these writings. 



The zeal with which the collection of organized fossils wa;s 

 pursued during the latter part of the seventeenth century was 

 very remarkable; and perhaps there is not any thing more 

 extraordinary in the history of geological opinions, than the 

 doctrine maintained at that period by Ray, Listei', and other 

 eminent naturalists, respecting the substances now imiversally 

 considered as the remains of animated beings. ' The gr'eat 

 < question now so much controverted in the world,' Dr. Plot 

 tells us, in 1667, ' is, Whether the stones we find in the fortft 

 ' of shell-fish, (and in his plates they are, with the caution usual 

 ' at that period upon this subject, denominated 'formed stones,') 

 ' be lapides sui generis, 7iatiirallij produced by some extraordinary 

 Aplastic virtue, latent in the earth, in quarries where they are 

 ' found ; or whether they rather owe their form and figure to 

 'the shells of the fishes they represent:*' — and this learned 

 writer gives no fewer than seven reasons for adhering to the 

 former of these opinions, in opposition to the sentiments of 

 Hooke and other persons, who entertained more rational views. 

 It will seem almost incredible to those who are acquainted 

 with the works of Cuvier, and other inquirers of our days, that 

 such a notion could at any time have found supporters : and 

 it is the more strange that Lister should have maintained these 

 views, as he was an excellent conchologist, and is to this day, 

 we believe, considered as one of the best authorities in that de- 

 partment of natural history: yet Woodwaixl says of him, that 

 notwithstanding the strongest evidence, ' he bravely continued 

 ' to the last firm and unshaken in his opinions f.' 



This curious absurdity affords a good illustration of the dan- 

 ger of hypothesis in natural history; since it was connected 

 with, if it did not originate in the assumption, that a general 

 deluge was the oidy cause that could have occasioned the de- 



* Natural History of Oxforclshire, p. 111. 



•f- Catalogue, part ii. p. G. — [The following specimen of Lister's reason- 

 ing upon this subject, will show, that notwithstanding his accordance with 

 the great error of his day, he had some very just notions respecting fossil 

 species. ' We will easily believe,' he says, ' (what I have read in Steno's 

 ' Prodromus) that all along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, there 

 ' may all manner of sea shells be found promiscuoiisly imbedded in rocks 

 ' or earth, and at good distance too from the sea. But for our English in- 

 ' land quarries, I am apt to think, there is no such matter as petrifying of 

 ' shells in the business : but that these cockle-like stones are everywhere as 

 ' they are at present, Lapides sui geiuTli, and never were any part of an 



* animal. It is most certain that our English quarry shells (to continue that 



• abusii'e name) have no parts of a different texture from the rock in ques- 



' tion whence they were taken ; that is, that there is no such thing as sh^ll ■ 

 ' in these resemblances of shells, and that they never were any part of ^n 



