252 Epitome of the Progress of JVatural Science. 



ters referred to the period of the ancient Romans and of Hanni- 

 bal, as Mr. Rankin, in his extravagant writings, pretends still to 

 think. 



The order of superposition of beds, began now to be understood. 

 Ardusino and Lehman, in 1759, both recognized the distinction 

 between primary, secondary, and tertiary rocks. In 1760, the 

 Rev. John Michell, Woodwardian professor at Cambridge, wrote 

 an admirable essay in the Philosophical Transactions, on the cause 

 and phenomena of Earthquakes, suggested by the great earth- 

 quake at Lisbon, five years before. In 1762, Fuchsel, a physi- 

 cian of Rudelstadt, in Germany, published his " Historia Terrs 

 et Maris." He was a practical geologist, and is the first who 

 described the Muschelkalk, a bed peculiar to Germany, in Eu- 

 rope, but which we have some reason to think has its equivalent 

 here. The name of this excellent observer has been but recently 

 brought forward.* The classification made by Werner, and pub- 

 lished 1787, appears to be far short of the progress already made 

 by Fuschel. Raspe, in 1763, in an able work, called the atten- 

 tion of naturahsts to the new Islands that from time to time had 

 appeared, urging them to study nature " in the act of parturi- 

 tion." In 1766, Brander published his Fossilia Hantoniensia, 

 with excellent figures of the tertiary shells. In 1780, Soldani 

 produced some able papers, on the comparative position of un- 

 disturbed fossils, with that of recent Testacea and Zoophytes. He 

 also first observed that the beds of the Parisian basin were alter- 

 nate deposits of marine and fresh water strata. 



About this time Pallas, a distinguished Russian naturalist, an- 

 nounced the order of superposition of the lower beds in the Sile- 

 sian chains, which was further illustrated by the observations of 

 the celebrated Saussure in the Alps : he aided greatly in reducing 

 to a regular study, the specification of beds, and the grouping of 

 them into formations. Hitherto, geological phenomena had been 

 considered rather as curious subjects for discussion, than as hav- 

 ing a bearing upon each other of a high philosophical character. 

 Important steps had been taken towards opening the considera- 

 tion of the structure of the planet, in a way worthy of so lofty a 

 subject; but the effort having been made in an insulated and de- 

 tached manner, had not concentrated to a point. It was reserved 

 for the celebrated German mineralogist, Werner, to draw the 



* See M. Kcferstcin's Memoir. .loumal dc Geologic, Oct. 1830. p. 191. 



