. II. RELICS, into Min. Kiogd. 17 



The subject of the present section presents itself 

 under two heads The Periods at which,, and the 



antiquiora ; Diluvium vero ncn dcmcnstrant, sed tantum longi- 

 aris (k'd -ruder a." Syst. Xat. The systems of a Woodward and 

 a Burnet thus rejected, and it must be admitted, we think, by all 

 who have well attended to the subject, rejected on sufficient grounds, 

 recourse has been had to other theories, which might better, ex- 

 plain and connect the various facts, established in the study by 

 those, who, not satisfied wilh a mere inspection of extraneous 

 fossils in cabinets, have investigated these relics of unknown ages, 

 as objects of geological importance, in their mineral beds. 



With naturalists who have thus cultivated a knowledge of 

 these bodies, it is now a generally received principle, that extra- 

 neous fossils are the productions of different periods. This as- 

 sumption is supported by various phenomena: principally, how- 

 ever, by the different states, in which these bodies are found by 

 their occuring in strata, which, from facts not connected with re- 

 liquia, are evidently of various formations, and by the agreement 

 observed between these different states, and the periods at which 

 the inclosing strata are supposed to have been deposited. In 

 superficial strata of modern formation, the organic remains being 

 scarcely altered from their original state while in strata of a more 

 ancient order, and, in point of relative situation, inferior to the 

 preceding, they are, for the most part, completely mineralized. 

 The next principle adopted in the study is, that the introduction 

 of extraneous bodies into the mineral world has been effected by 

 various causes. This proposition will not be disputed by those, who 

 have attentively examined the facts, from which it is deduced. 

 It is obvious, that the same cause could not involve marine re- 

 mains in the heart or substance of a rock, which collected and de- 

 posited, in its clefts or fissures, the relics of land-animals only that 

 the means, whatever they might be, which nature employed in 

 dispersing the bones of elephants and other quadrupeds, hi a loose 



D 



