Dr. Fitton's Notes on the History of English Geology. 1 55 



* land, even as far as to the walls of Paris by Calais is, as it 



* were, a continued xmolds of chalk and flint.' 



The geological labours of Woodward deserve very honour- 

 able mention ; for he appears to have had some correct no- 

 tions as to the general structure of the globe, and the proper 

 method of pursuing the investigation of it; though his views 

 were warped by the taste for antediluvian history which then 

 prevailed, and his opinion that mineral substances were dis- 

 posed in the earth according to the order of specific gra- 

 vity, is singularly at variance with many of his own observa- 

 tions. 



' 1 made strict inquiry (he tells us,) wherever I came, and 



* laid out for intelligence of all places where the entrails of the 

 ' earth were laid open, either by nature (if I may so say,) or 



* by art and human industry. And wheresoever I had notice 

 ' of any considerable natural spelunca or grotto, any sinking 

 ' of wells, or digging for earth, gravel, chalk, coal, stone, mar- 



* ble, ores of metals, or the like, I forthwith had recourse 



* thereunto ; where, taking a just account of every observable 



* circumstance of the earth, stone, metal, or other matter, 

 ' from the surface quite down to the bottom of the pit, I en- 



* tered it carefully into a journal which I carried along with 

 ' me for that purpose. — The result was, that in time I was 



* ahindantly assured that the circumstances of these things in 

 ' remoter countries, were much the same with those of ours here ; 



* that the stone and other terrestrial matter in France, Flanders, 



* Holland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and 



* Sweden, was distinguished into strata or layers, as it is in 

 ' England; that those strata were divided by 'parallel fissures; 



* that there were inclosed in the stone, and all the other denser 

 ' kinds (f terrestrial matter, great numbers of shells, and other 



* productions of the sea, in the same manner as i?i that of this 



* island*.^ 



The zeal with which Woodward devoted himself to natural 

 Instory was very remarkable; and his Catalogue of English 

 Fossilsi is alone sufficient to entitle him to the gratitude of 

 succeeding inquirers. The collection, to which the catalogue 

 relates, is still preserved at Cambridge, and is to this day of 

 great value as an object of reference : — and the professorship 

 which bears his name in that University, in the hands of the 

 able naturalists who have successively held the office, has 



rH 

 ,M 

 ,* Nat. I list, of the Earth, 1 72.3, pp. 4, 5. 



f 'An Atteiii|)t towards a Natural History of tlie l'\>ssils of Knglaiul,&c. 

 ot a (.'ataloguc of English Fossils' in the collection ot J. VVooilwartl, M.D. 

 2 tomes, bond. 172t» and 17:^9. > 



