PREFACE. HI 



tal remains, that have not acquired a stony or other 

 mineral character: (&) \vhile others admit every 

 fossil possessing the form of a plant or animal, 

 although such form be merely imitative ; lhat 

 is, not derived from the body it accidentally repre- 

 sents, (c) 



I was early induced to turn from such a contra- 

 riety of opinion, and seek for the principles, on which 

 a knowledge of organic remains might be founded, 

 in a diligent investigation of the bodies themselves : 

 carefully noting every phenomenon that either es- 

 tablished or opposed those ideas on this subject, 

 which reading had given me ; and, in conclusion, 

 strictly observing to use nothing definitively as a 

 principle in the study, till repeated applications had 

 proved the propriety of its adoption. With such 

 end in view, it will readily be conceived, that many 

 speculative notions have been abandoned, which, at 



(b) V. Gmel. Syst. Nat. &c. 



(c) V. Justi, Vogel, Linnaeus, &c. 



In a late most ingenious work, we find every mineral consi- 

 dered as an extraneous, or (as it is there called) a secondary fossil, 

 whose origin can be traced up to organized matter ; although the 

 form and structure of such matter be lost in a natural resolution 

 of its constituent particles. V. Parkinson's " Organic Remains/' 



a 



