LLWYD 241 



a description of fossil remains classed according to their 

 resemblance with existing living forms. The classification 

 shows remarkable insight, and at first glance we might 

 suspect the arguments of Steno were now producing their 

 natural effect, but we need not read very far to be 

 undeceived ; the arguments of Steno are quoted, indeed, 

 but only to be refuted. Only two views seem possible 

 to Llwyd : fossils are either the reliquiae of the universal 

 deluge, or they are due to a formative force acting within 

 the earth's crust upon the seeds of organisms brought by 

 rain from the sea. It is the latter view that he adopts, 

 and this has in it a certain ingenuity, since the characters 

 which fossils and organisms possess in common are 

 attributed to a common origin, i.e., the seeds, while such 

 differences as distinguish them are due to a difference of 

 environment during their germination ; and so, as G. 

 Agricola remarks: " Quanto Terra est crassior quam 

 aqua ; tanto imperfectiores gignit formas et quae 

 animalibus careant." 



Both sides of this momentous controversy had now 

 been fairly presented to the world, and it was left for the 

 faithful labours of the next century to arrive at a decision. 

 The principles of Steno eventually prevailed, and Geology 

 entered upon a new phase of her existence ; she com- 

 menced to free herself from the trammels of time ! 



Hutton, in his great work, " The Theory of the Earth," 

 published in 1788, attacked the subject on that side where 

 Steno had most conspicuously failed. His method was 

 the same as Steno's ; just as Steno had explained fossil 

 remains by comparison with living animals, so Hutton 

 explained the past history of the earth by comparison 

 with the present. If this county of Oxfordshire was, 

 together with all England, at one time submerged 

 fathoms deep beneath the sea, it was owing to a slow 



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