2 . I. PRELIMINARY. Natural Bodies. 



A. 1. ANIMALS are natural bodies, organized, 

 living, and sentient. 



B. 2. VEGETABLES are natural bodies, or- 

 ganized, and living, but not sentient. 



C. 3. FOSSILS are natural bodies, unorganized^ 

 and neither living, nor sentient. ff 



ft The Linneaii complex 'definitions of the animal, vegetable, 

 and fossil kingdom, are frequently objected to; but none more simply 

 correct, or applicable have been, or perhaps can be, produced. Indeed, 

 it has been repeatedly remarked, that animals and vegetables are 

 so closely allied, it is hardly possible to draw a line of separation 

 between them ; and we may adcl, that the limits of the fossil king- 

 dom are scarely determinable by a single character ; at least, not 

 by any one founded on structure, chemical analysis, or the want of 

 life or sensation. There are many fossil substances, for instance, 

 which our systematic mineralogists rank even with native minerals, 

 and which, when accurately examined, are found to possess the 

 structure of organized bodies: such are the woodstones, Bovey 

 coal, surturbrand, &c. nor will chemical analysis, it is evident, 

 in all cases, distinguish a mineral from an animal or vegetable body, 

 as there are substances, chemically the same, which belong equally 

 to the animal, vegetable, and mineral world. Again, the ab- 

 sence of life does not independently form a discriminative character, 

 for were this the case, it follows, that animals and vegetables, when 

 merely deprived of life, are to be classed as minerals ! Perhaps 

 the only simple note of distinction, between fossils and animal, or 

 vegetable bodies, is that which putrefaction affords. And hence, 

 agreeable to this view of the subject, all fossil, animal, or vegetable 

 matter, when it has passed that process, or occurs preserved from 

 its effects by means of some natural operation, is to be considered 

 as belonging to the mineral kingdom, although an organic arrange- 

 ment of its particles may remain. 



