16 . II. RELICS. Introduction 



Introduction into the Mineral Kingdom. 



IT is inferred from the foregoing Phenomena, 

 that the introduction of extraneous bodies, into 

 the mineral kingdom, has been effected in various 

 modes, and at various periods, during a succes- 

 sion of ages; but, with respect to those, from which 

 the petrificata derive their form, chiefly while the 

 superficial parts of the globe were in their primeval 

 soft, or liquid state ,ff and the ocean far above its 

 present level. 



ft Mineralogists by no means agree in their suppositions respect- 

 ing the period or manner, in which organized bodies have been intro- 

 duced into the fossil world. The deluge was formerly considered 

 by many, as an event in the natural history of our globe, which 

 satisfactorily accounted for the accumulation and interment of ex- 

 traneous remains, in every situation even when found at the 

 greatest depths, and enveloped in the hardest substances, in which 

 these bodies occur. By modern geologists, however, and indeed 

 by those who are the most strenuous in contending for the uni- 

 versality of the deluge (vide Mr. Kirwan's Geol. Essays) this ca- 

 tastrophe is not esteemed adequate to the production of those 

 appearances, which organic fossils generally exhibit; and, at most, 

 is only supposed to have been the cause of partial and superficial 

 depositions of these bodies such as are discovered in loose or tra- 

 velled materials, or merely in the external clefts and chasms of ge- 

 nuine, solid strata. Hence (with reference to that deep and 

 extensive mass of imbedded, marine remains, which limestone 

 tracts usually afford) it has been observed, " Ubi testacea et litho- 

 phyta fossilia existunt in magna copia, ibi quondam fuere maris lit- 

 tora aut abyssus, cum sint mera vestigia maris, omni historia 



