96 A HISTORY OF 



It is extraordinary enough, however, that the common red coral, 

 though so very frequent at sea, is scarcely seen in the fossil world, 

 nor is there any account of its having ever been met with. But to com- 

 pensate for this, there are all the kinds of the white coral now known, 

 and many other kinds of that substance with which we are unac- 

 quainted. Of animals there are various parts : the vertebras of whales, 

 and the mouths of lesser fishes ; these, with teeth also of various 

 kinds, are found in the cabinets of the curious ; where they receive 

 long Greek names, which it is neither the intention nor the province 

 of this work to enumerate. Indeed, few readers would think themselves 

 much improved, should I proceed with enumerating the various classes 

 of Conicthyodontes, Polyleptoginglimi, or the Orthoceratites. These 

 names, which mean no great matter when they are explained, may 

 serve to guide in furnishing a cabinet ; but they are of very little 

 service in furnishing the page of instructive history. 



From all these instances we see in what abundance petrifactions 

 are to be found ; and, indeed, Mr. BuflTon, to whose accounts we have 

 added some, has not been sparing in the variety of his quotations, 

 concerning the places where they are mostly to be found. However, 

 I am surprised that he should have omitted the mention of one, which, 

 in some measure, more than any of the rest, would have served to 

 strengthen his theory. We are informed, by almost every traveller,* 

 that has described the pyramids of Egypt, that one of them is entire- 

 ly built of a kind of free-stone, in which these petrified shells arc 

 found in great abundance. This being the case, it may be conjectur- 

 ed, as we have accounts of these pyramids among the earliest records 

 of mankind, and of their being built so long before the age of Herodo* 

 tus, who lived but fifteen hundred years after the flood, that even the 

 Egyptian priests could tell neither the time nor the cause of their erec- 

 tion ; I say, it may be conjectured that they were erected but a short 

 time after the flood. It is not very likely, therefore, that the marine 

 substances found in one of them, had time to be formed into a part 

 of the solid stone, either during the deluge, or immediately after it ; 

 and, consequently, their petrifaction must have been before that pe- 

 riod. And this is the opinion Mr. Buffon has so strenuously endea- 

 voured to maintain ; having given specious reasons to prove, that 

 such shells were laid in the beds where they are now found, not only 

 before the deluge, but even antecedent to the formation of man, at 

 the time when the whole earth, as he supposes, was buried beneath 

 a covering of waters. 



But while there are many reasons to persuade us that these ex- 

 traneous fossils have been deposited by the sea, there is one fact 

 that will abundantly serve to convince us, that the earth was habita- 

 ble, ft" not inhabited, before these marine substances came to be thus 

 deposited. For we find fossil-trees, which no doubt once grew upon 

 the earth, as deep, and as much in the body of solid rocks, as these 

 shells are found to be. Some of these fallen trees also have lain at 

 feast as ong, if not longer, in the earth, than the shells, as they have 

 been found sunk deep in a marly substance, composed of decayed 

 and other marine productions. Mr. Buffon has proved, thai 

 Hasselmiist, Sandys. 



