32 HISTOET OF THE SCIENCE. 



and gifted mind, highly improved by careful study and cultiva- 

 tion, and would, doubtless, have effected much more for science, 

 had not his attention been called away to other objects. 



SCILLA, a Sicilian painter, published, in 1670, a work on 

 the fossils of Calabria, in which he vindicated the vital origin 

 of these objects, ascribing them to the agency of the deluge. 

 QUIRENT, (1690,) in a work descriptive of fossil shells, ex- 

 presses opinions far more advanced : he maintains that 

 petrified shells cannot have originated from the deluge 

 recorded by Moses ; intimates that the Scriptural relation of 

 this event is not to be subjected to a strictly literal inter- 

 pretation, and suggests, among other propositions, the idea 

 that the visitation in question was by no means universal in 

 its prevalence. In support of these positions, he denies 

 that bodies of such considerable weight could possibly have 

 been floated to the summits of lofty mountains, or that the 

 agitation of the waves could have produced such a result ; 

 citing the statement of Boyle, then recently published, that 

 the most furious storms affect the sea only to a moderate 

 depth. He is still less inclined to the doctrine of the shells 

 having grown in the waters of the deluge, on account of the 

 brief duration of that event, and the fact that the excessive 

 rains must have deprived the sea of its saltness. 



VALLISFERI (1721) was distinguished for the philosophic 

 freedom of his doctrines, contending against the univer- 

 sality of the deluge, and its adequacy to account for the 

 existence of fossils. MOEO (1740) advocated the efficacy 

 of igneous causes, and demonstrated the elevation of 

 mountains, and the occurrence of other phenomena, to 

 have been caused by their agency ; while at the same time 

 he strenuously contended for the literal interpretation of 

 the six days recorded in the Mosaic account as the period 

 of creation, commencing first with the prevalence of 

 water, and next of animals and plants. His system bears 

 a resemblance to that subsequently promulgated by Hut- 

 ton, for which it may have furnished some ideas. Sir C. 

 Lyell has observed, that as, from the prolixity of his style 

 and the novelty of his views, he required an expositor, the 

 Scottish philosopher was not more fortunate in the advo- 

 cacy of Professor Playfair, than was Moro in that of his 

 admirer Generelli, who, nine years after, delivered to the 



