1 60 Dr. Fittou's Notes on the History of English Geology. 



nominations, to some of those which had fallen under his own 

 observation in France, derived from the predominant species. 

 In order to judge of the approach which he thus made to 

 more modern opinions, gieater detail would be necessary than 

 we are possessed of. If the ainas meant beds, the coincidence 

 would be complete; and even what we have quoted indicates 

 a very near approach to the principles, of which the French na- 

 turalists have since made such admirable use in their examina- 

 tion of the country round Paris; and which have furnished Mr'. 

 Smith with the title of one of his publications, Strata Identified 

 by Orgarnzed Fossils*. 



In a treatise which Lehman published in 1756f, he claims 

 for himself the credit of being the first to observe and describe 

 correctly the structure of stratified countries: but he does 

 not seem to have been acquainted with the papers of Mr. 

 Strachey above referred to. He supposes that coa/-beds are 

 the lowest of the stratified substances ; that various ' pierreS 

 feuillettes' occupy the middle portion,— and the beds that af- 

 ford the saline springs (fontaines salantes), the uppermost of 

 the strata; which arrangement, he asserts, is universal. He has 

 detailed the order, composition, and thicknessof the strata, which 

 surround the nucleus of the Hartz mountains, and occur in 

 detached portions in the north-east of Germany; pointing 

 out the identity of certain beds, which are separated from 

 each other by intervals of several miles, but without asserting 

 that the corresponding strata are absolutely continuous. His 

 treatise is interspersed also with very good remarks upon the 

 nomenclature and general relations of strata, and on the import- 

 ant purposes in practical mining, which may be promoted by 

 the study of them; and his observations, we have reason to be- 

 lieve, are regarded in Germany as having thrown considera- 

 ble light on the geology of that country. 

 [To be continued.] 



* [ Desmarest's exposition ofRouelle's doctrines, in a subsequent volume of 

 the work last referred to, (ii. p. 346, &c., article Amas,&c.) which however 

 was not published until 1803, contains some passages expressing yet more 

 nearly, the most recent views of geologists, as to the diffusion of organized 

 remains, and their relations to the strata in which they occur. But there 

 js still no distinct enunciation of the princijjle, — that strata may be traced, 

 m detached and remote situations, by means of their Jnssils, which Mr. Smith 

 ' nad been acting upon for more than thirteen years, at the time of 

 this last publication. The words "font bnnde a part," in the latter part 

 of the passage above quoted, are ambiguous; but they seem rather to relate 

 to horizontal extent, than to vertical superposition.] 



f Versuch einen geschichte von Floetz Gehiirgen, Berlin, 1756. Trans- 

 lated by Holback, with other productions of Lehman, under the title of 

 Traitet de Physique, Sic. Paris, 1759, vol.iii. 



