Hi The Natural Hi [lory 



fui generis', than to theirs, That they arethut formed in an Animal 

 mold. The latter opinion appearing at prefent to be prefled with 

 far more, and more infuperable difficulties than the former. 



98. For they that hold thefe slones were thus formed in the 

 fiells of fijbes, muft fuppbfe either with Steno n , that they were 



brought hither by the Deluge in the days of Noah ; or by Tome o- 

 ther more particular, and perhaps National Flood, fuch as the 

 Ogygean, or Deucalionian in Greece^ than either of which there is 

 nothing more improbable. 



99. Firft, not by the Flood in the days of Noah, becaufe 

 that (and for very good reafons too) feems not to have been uni- 

 verfal, andatmoftto have covered only the continent of Jfia, 

 and not to have extended it felf to this then uninhabited Weftern 

 part of the World.. But fuppofe it were tfniverfal, yet it pro- 

 ceeded from Rain, which (as Mr. Ray wellobferves) would more 

 likely have carryed fiells down into thefea, than brought any 

 upwards from it. And if it be further urged, That the fountains 

 of the great deep were broken up p , and that the Deluge proceeded 

 partly from a breaking forth and over-flowing of the fea, which 

 confequently might bring in the fiells : It may be anfwered, that 

 the over-flowing, either gradually increafed upon the Earth, or 

 was violent : if gradually, as it is moft likely (for God caufed not 

 any wind%o pafs over the Earth till the Waters began to affwage q ; 

 and befides, the Waters that defcended in Rain, in all probabi- 

 lity at firft ran down to the Sea, and gavefom^check to its floods') 

 why fhould we think that any Jbetl-fijb, efpecially of the teftace- 

 cut kind, whereof there are fome that always ftick to rocks, and 

 others that have no locomotion, as Oysiers, Mufcles, (yc* but what 

 is given them by the Waters violence, fhould leave their beds in 

 the Sea at all, and be carried aloft to the tops of Mountains. 

 And if violent, then fuch a Flood would have indifferently fcat- 

 tered all forts of fiells over the whole face of the Earth, efpeci- 

 ally in all valleys ; whereas we find the ft ones that refemble them 

 mapy times at the tops of hills, and but in few valleys ; and thofe 

 not fcattered neither indifferently one amongft another, but fof 

 the moft part thofe of a kind together; and of the fame kind 

 too, thofe of different lineations together. Thus at Cor nw ell 



JnProdromo. * Vt'it Scillingfleti Or/g/'w Sacras, lit'. 3- <<*/+ pCen.c7.ver.i1. 9 Gen- cap. 8. 

 ver, 1, 



and 



