HISTORICAL GEOLOGY 115 



Nature and the influence of the stars have formed these 

 shells in the mountains; then show me a place in the 

 mountains where the stars at the present day make shelly 

 forms of different ages, and of different species in the 

 same place. " However, nothing came of his teachings 

 and those of his countryman Fracastorio (1483-1553), 

 who further ridiculed the idea that they were the 

 remains of the deluge. The first mineralogist, Agricola, 

 described them as minerals fossilia and said that they 

 arose in the ground from fatty matter set in fermenta- 

 tion by heat. Others said that they were freaks of 

 nature. Martin Lister (1638-1711) figured fossils side 

 by side with living shells to show that they were extinct 

 forms of life. In the seventeenth century, and especially 

 in Italy and Germany, many books were published on 

 fossils, some with illustrations so accurate that the 

 species can be recognized to-day. Finally, toward 

 the close of this century the influence of Aristotle and the 

 scholastic tendency to disputation came more or less to 

 an end. Fossils were already to many naturalists once 

 living plants and animals. Marsh states: "The many 

 collections of fossils that had been brought together, and 

 the illustrated works that had been published about them, 

 were a foundation for greater progress, and, with the 

 eighteenth century, the second period in the history of 

 paleontology began. " 



Diluvial Period. During the eighteenth century many 

 more books on fossils were published in western Europe, 

 and now the prevalent explanation was that they were 

 the remains of the Noachian deluge. For nearly a cen- 

 tury theologians and laymen alike took this view, and 

 some of the books have become famous on this account, 

 but the diluvial views sensibly declined with the close 

 of the eighteenth century. 



The true nature of fossils had now been clearly deter- 

 mined. They were the remains of plants and animals, 

 deposited long before the deluge, part in fresh water and 

 part in the sea. ' ' Some indicated a mild climate, and some 

 the tropics. That any of these were extinct species, was 

 as yet only suspected. ' ' Yet before the close of the cen- 

 tury there were men in England and France who pointed 

 out that different formations had different fossils and 



