RAY AND WILLUGHBY. 31 



a day at Altdorf,* which he describes as ' a little walled 

 town, and an university belonging to the Nurenbergers, 

 where there is a pretty physic garden.' He then appends 

 in full, a Latin inscription containing a history of the 

 university, in which 'are maintained thirty-six students 

 at the charges of the city of Nurenberg, which also 

 pays the professors their stipends.' The degrees given 

 by this little university are those of ' doctor of law, 

 physic, and poetry, batchelor of divinity, and master of 

 arts.' 



Here Ray was shown some ' serpent-stones, and some 

 petrified cockle and muscle shells;' and he takes occasion 

 thereupon to enter upon a digression of more than a 

 dozen pages as to the nature of ' fossils ' in general. In 

 this digression he not only gives a list of the localities 

 known to him as affording fossils, but he discusses all 

 the theories as to their origin, and particularly the two 

 principal rival hypotheses of his day. By one of these 

 theories which Ray speaks of as the ' general opinion 

 of the antients' it was held that fossils 'were original 

 the shells or bones of living fishes or other animals bred 

 in the sea;' the ancients in this matter agreeing with 

 modern scientific men. On the other hand, there was 

 the widely spread opinion of those who imagined 'these 

 bodies to have been the effects and products of some 

 plastic power in the earth, and to have been formed 

 after the manner of diamonds and other precious stones, 

 or the crystals of coagulated salts, by shooting into such 



* Altdorf was at one time a famous university, having come into existence in 

 1575 ; but it ceased to exist in 1809, shortly after Niirnberg had been incorporated 

 with the kingdom of Bavaria. 



