BERNARD PALTSST. 1TICOLAUS STEXOIS'. 31 



tliat of the Vatican, formed under Pope Sixtus V., and 

 arranged, described, and figured by Mercati, whose amount 

 of philosophic knowledge may, however, be estimated by the 

 fact, that he attributed fossils to the agency of the celestial 

 bodies. The collection of the Vatican was dispersed soon 

 after the death of Mercati; but others were formed at 

 Verona, Naples, Milan, Bologna, and other cities of Italy, 

 which soon led the way to more correct opinions. Thus 

 Cesalpini, the botanist, (1596,) may be mentioned as one 

 among the earliest who determined the real nature of 

 fossils, ascribing them, in distinct terms, to "the retiring 

 of the sea and the lapidification of the soil." Fabio Colonna, 

 another botanist of eminence, (1626,) achieved a still farther 

 progress, and showed not only the reality of the shells, but 

 arranges them according to distinct genera and species, 

 proving that some were referable to marine, others to fresh- 

 water kinds, and that the teeth found with the marine spe- 

 cies were not those of serpents, as had been supposed, but 

 of sharks. He farther pointed out the difference between 

 the petrified shell, the impression, and the cast which the 

 decomposition of the shell left in the substance which it has 

 inclosed. Steno, as he is called by the Italians, but w r hose 

 name in his native tongue is JSTicolaus Stenon, a native of 

 Copenhagen, naturalised in Italy, who flourished about the 

 middle of the seventeenth century, was an able anatomist 

 and physiologist, one of the earliest who observed and 

 described, with accuracy, the muscular and nervous systems, 

 and the structure and functions of the brain. He alike 

 directed his inquiries to mineralogy and geology*. His work, 

 De Solido intra Solidum contento, displayed many sound and 

 philosophic principles, mingled with several of the prevailing 

 errors of the time, and, in deference to existing prejudices, 

 were rather submitted as propositions than affirmed as 

 facts. He was one of the first to make known the fossi 1 

 bones found in such great abundance in the Val d'Arno, 

 in Tuscany. He contended for the vital origin of fossil 

 remains, but considered that they might have been produced 

 by the Noachian deluge. He farther asserted that fossil 

 vegetables are the remains of once living plants, and that 

 the mountains are of secondary origin, formed since the 

 creation of the earth. He was a man of a very powerful 



