22 HISTOET OF THE SCIENCE. 



a slight corruption of the text to have taken place, and to 

 suggest the requisite emendation ? The mere change of 

 two letters, by substituting " alluvie " for " eluvie," will 

 render this description of alluvial action perfectly clear and 

 satisfactory. The mistake is one which might easily have 

 been committed by a transcriber, and which in the then 

 imperfect state of natural science might have passed 

 unnoticed. 



Justin, to whom we owe the preservation of several curious 

 passages of Trogus Pompeius, seems to adopt the sentiment 

 of that historian as to the igneous origin of our planet. He 

 is of opinion, that the refrigeration having taken place at 

 the poles, the Scythians must have been the first inhabitants 

 of the earth ! Livy has occasional notices of natural pheno- 

 mena, disfigured, however, by his prevailing superstition. 

 He informs us,* for instance, that at the period immediately 

 preceding the death of Hannibal, fearful prodigies occurred. 

 It rained blood, he states, for three days in the court of the 

 Temple of Concord, and a new island rose out of the sea 

 opposite to the coast of Sicily. The former phenomenon is 

 ascertained to have been occasioned by an insect, a butterfly 

 of the genus Vanessa, which, on emerging from its pupa 

 state, is known to emit drops of red liquor, so that a swarni 

 of these creatures would naturally produce a shower resem- 

 bling one of blood. A circumstance of like nature which 

 occurred at Aix, in France, in the year 1608, occasioned 

 similar alarms, which were dispelled by the celebrated 

 Peiresc, who had paid considerable attention to entomology 

 and the transformation of insects. The apparition of the 

 new island has its analogy in the elevation of the volcanic 

 isle of the Mediterranean, which rose from the deep a few 

 years since, and shortly after sank again beneath the waters. 

 These natural occurrences, however, which modern science 

 can thus easily explain, so terrified the superstitious Romans, 

 as to induce them to decree a supplication of the whole 

 people to the altars and temples of the gods, to avert the 

 calamities which it was feared such prodigies portended. 



The occurrence of fossil shells at a distance from the isea 

 is noticed by several of the fathers, and in particular by 



* Book xxxix. c. t>. 



