2l6 HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



Stars, and others that they were brought forth 

 naturally, in the layers of earth in which they 

 were found. He wanted to know where the things 

 were being made in the hills, by the stars, at the 

 present time, and stated that, like the rounded 

 stones of gravel, the shells had been in the sea, and 

 that they were of different ages and kinds, and 

 were once alive. But the former living condition 

 of fossils, and the possibility of their being under- 

 stood, by comparing them with recent or living 

 things, was, perhaps, most strongly put by Steno, 

 a Dane. 



In 1638, a goldsmith, Steno by name, living at 

 Copenhagen, who was a tradesman of the King 

 Christian IV. of Denmark, had a son. The young 

 Nicholas was brought up carefully, evidently was 

 well educated, and was destined for the medical 

 profession. A strict Lutheran, he naturally went 

 to Holland for a part of his education, and studied 

 at Leyden under the very distinguished anatomists 

 there, after he had taken his degree. Nothing is 

 known about his person or habits, but the results 

 of his constant labour prove him to have been a 

 most industrious student, and also an investigator 

 of the human frame in his early days of manhood. 

 At first the medical profession was everything to 

 him, and he studied human anatomy and physi- 

 ology with great success, making some important 

 and interesting discoveries. He discovered the 

 duct or channel by which the saliva runs into the 

 mouth from the salivary gland beneath the skin on 



