70 



GEOLOGY AND NATURAL* HISTORY. 



ed in the 17th century of the Hegira, 

 or at the close of the 13th century 

 of our era. It is as follows : " I 

 passed one day," an allegorical per- 

 sonage is represented as saying, "by 

 a very ancient and wonderfully po- 

 pulous city, and asked one of its 

 inhabitants how long it had been 

 founded ? ' It is, indeed, a mighty 

 city,' replied he, 'we know not how 

 long it has existed, and our ancestry 

 were on this subject as ignorant as 

 ourselves.' Five centuries after- 

 wards, as I passed by the same 

 place, I could not perceive the slight- 

 est vestige of the city. I demanded 

 of a peasant, who was gathering 

 herbs upon its former site, how long 

 it had been destroyed? 'In sooth, 

 a strange question !' replied he. 'The 

 ground here has never been differ- 

 ent from what you now behold it.' 

 'Was there not of old,' said I, 'a 

 splendid city here?' 'Never,' an- 

 swered he, ' so far as we have seen, 

 and never did our fathers speak to 

 us of any such. On my return there 

 500 years afterwards, I found the 

 sea in the same place, and on its 

 shores were a party of fishermen, of 

 whom I inquired how long the land 

 had been covered by the waters ? 

 'Is this a question,' said they, 'for 

 a man like you 1 this spot has al- 

 ways been what it is now.' I again 

 returned, 500 years afterwards, and 

 the sea had disappeared ; I inquired 

 of a man, who stood alone upon the 

 spot, how long this change had taken 

 place ; and he gave me the same an- 

 swer as I had received before. Last- 

 ly, on coming back again, after an 

 equal lapse of time, I found there a 

 flourishing city, more populous, and 

 more rich in beautiful buildings 

 than the city I had seen the first 

 tune, and when I would fain have 

 informed myself concerning its ori- 

 gin, the inhabitants answered me, 

 ' Its rise is lost in remote antiquity ; 

 we are ignorant how long it has ex- 

 isted, and our fathers were on this 

 subject as ignorant as ourselves.' " 



SUPERSTITIONS RESPECTING ORGANIC 

 REMAINS. 



There are still people credulous 

 enough to believe that fossils are 

 freaks of nature, having no relation 

 whatever to the organisms of a 

 previous condition of our planet. 

 There is less room, therefore, to 

 wonder at the popular belief of for- 

 mer days, that the shells of ammo- 

 nites, found in the series of rocks 

 beginning with the lias and ending 

 with the chalk, were petrified 

 snakes. A legend bore, that St. 

 Hilda, a female devotee at Whitby, 

 in Yorkshire, where they abound, 

 destroyed the living serpents by 

 praying their heads off, and then 

 praying them into stone. It is to 

 this legend that Sir Walter Scott 

 refers in Marmion : 



" And how the nuns of Whitby told 

 How, of countless snakes, each one 

 Was changed into a coil of stone, 

 When holy Hilda pray'd ; 

 Themselves within their sacred brund 

 Their stony folds had often found. 1 ' 



This superstition prevailed till a 

 recent period. Mr. Sowerby men- 

 tions that a dealer was requested 

 by his customers to supply them 

 with some of the creatures which 

 had escaped decapitation ; and being 

 anxious to gratify his patrons by 

 providing them with snakes with 

 their heads on, he contrived, with 

 the aid of plaster of Paris, to pro- 

 duce the entire animal. In fact, he 

 drove a brisk trade in the restored 

 specimens, until some remorseless 

 geologist, on visiting the place, be- 

 headed the luckless reptiles with 

 his hammer, and reduced them to 

 their original condition of ammonite 

 shells. In the same poem, Sir 

 Walter celebrates the beads of St. 

 Cuthbert,the fragments of the sterna 

 of crinoioea, or stone lilies, common 

 in the older deposits, and which, 

 being hollow, were frequently strung 

 together, and used as rosaries in 



