LIFE ON THE EARTH. 175 



THEOKIES AND OPINIONS. 



FORMED STONES. 



THKEE centuries have glided by since Bernard 

 Palissy, the philosophic potter of Xaintonge, revived 

 the ancient opinion of Herodotus 1 and Pythagoras 2 , 

 and wrote the simple words, 



* Je t'ay monstre plusieurs coquilles reduites en pierre.' 



France may well be proud of him, for he was among 

 the first who ever uttered in modern Europe sensible 

 remarks on the subject of Palaeontology 8 , and they 

 fell on incredulous ears. 



Two centuries only remove us from Agostino 

 Scilla 4 , the worthy Italian painter, who strove to 

 dissipate false speculations regarding petrified marine 

 exuvise, by excellent drawings of recent and fossil 

 teeth, Echinida and shells, from the Tertiary Strata 

 of Messina and Malta. What these false speculations 

 were, is too well known to the readers of our earliest 

 English authors, Plot, Llwydd, Lister, Ray, and Wood- 



1 Euterpe, 12. 2 Ovid, Metam. 



3 The first of Palissy's Essays is dated 1557 ; the complete 

 work 1580 ; Gessner's work, De omni rerum fossilium genere, &c., 

 was printed at Zurich in 1565. 



4 La vana speculazione disingannata. Earliest Edition, 1670. 



