Chap. 41.] Ctiricjities found in the Earth. 273 



and fruits; of fifh, teftaceous, cruftaceous, and fqtia- 

 mous, and of other occafional inhabitants of the wa- 

 ters. The fpoils of land animals -.re alfo met withj 

 but in much fmaller quantities, which it is not diffi^ 

 cult to account for, when we confider, that the waters 

 of the fea occupy more than twice as much of the 

 globe as the land, and that the waters are much more 

 copioufly fupplied with animals of confiderable mag- 

 nitude, than the land. Add to this, that the claffrs of 

 corallines, lithophaita, and many of the teftaceous 

 Jdnds, are of a fubftance as hard as flone, and of a 

 much more durable-texture ; whence it is not to be 

 accounted a matter of furprize that they abound fo 

 much in the earth in the form of petrifactions. We 

 are to recollect alfo, that the catafirophe of a deluge 

 would foon corrupt, deflroy, and difperfe the parts of 

 fuch living creatures as die in the waters j while the 

 natives of the fea would ftruggle with the difficulties 

 of an inundation, and be at laft depofited, perhaps 

 alive, in the earth, when the fettlement of the ftrata 

 took place, and the waters retreated, as jt is evident 

 that many of them actually were, from the poftures 

 and circumftances in which they have been difco 

 vered *. 



* See Jones's Phyfiological DifquifitiOns. 



, n. 



