. III. DIST. CHAR. Mede. 41 



amber ; also shells, corals, and other marine 



In Professor Playfair's " Illustrations" are many excellent re- 

 marks on the different states, in which fossil bones are found. Some 

 of these which are applicable to our present subject, we shall take 

 the liberty to transcribe. After clearly and properly distinguish- 

 ing between those extraneous fossils which originate from organic 

 bodies, that existed before the formation of the present land, and 

 those which are the parts of animals, &c., that have lived on the 

 very same continents on which ivs now dwell, our author proceeds 

 to consider the latter under two classes viz., those which are 

 found in clefts and chasms, and which by the help of stalactitical 

 concretions are often converted into stone and those which occur 

 in loose earth or soil, and which have not acquired a stony charac- 

 ter. No decided line, it is observed, can be drawn between these 

 classes with respect to their antiquity, as in many instances the ob- 

 jects of both appear to be coeval; but, in general, the remains 

 found in loose earth c., are to be accounted of later origin, than 

 those inclosed in caves and chasms, as they are rarely preserved in 

 a manner so well fitted for long continuance. 



The fossil bones which belong to the first of these classes, " are 

 generally found in the neighbourhood of limestone strata, and are 

 either enveloped or penetrated by calcareous, or sometimes ferru- 

 ginous matter." (v. Impregnation 4.) " Of this sort are the bones 

 found in the rock of Gibraltar" (these retain the phosphoric acid, 

 distinguishing the substance of the bones from the mineral matter, 

 a carbonate of lime, with which they are impregnated) " and on the 

 coast of Dalmatia. The latter are peculiarly marked for their 

 number and the extent of the country over which they are scatter- 

 ed, leaving it doubtful whether they are the work of successive ages 

 or of some sudden catastrophe that has assembled in one place, and 

 overwhelmed with immediate destruction, a vast multitude of the 

 inhabitants of the globe. These remains are found in the greatest 

 abundance in the islands of Cherso and Osero ; and always in what 

 the Abbe Fortis calls an ocreo-stalactitic earth. The bones are 



I 



