ON THE UNIVERSAL DELUGE. 419 



appearance of probability, that the condition of the earth, 

 previous to the existence of organic matter, depended 

 upon fusion ; and that the primitive rocks are of igneous 

 origin. Since, however, granite has been found above 

 rocks of various kinds which contain the remains of or- 

 ganic bodies, we are under no necessity of ascribing to 

 primitive rocks an origin different from that of subse- 

 quent formations ; and, without having recourse to other 

 arguments, the fact, that aquatic animals are the most 

 abundant of fossil organic remains from the earliest of 

 the transition to the latest of the secondary and tertiary 

 formations, affords evidence that they are precipitates 

 from water. 



Notwithstanding the great and daily advancement of 

 science, our knowledge of chemistry is still too imperfect 

 for us to arrive at an adequate knowledge of the state of 

 this water, or rather sea, as, from its universal expansion, 

 it must be denominated. Did it contain dissolved in it 

 at the same time all the materials from which the various 

 beds of rock were formed ; what were the solvents of 

 those materials which we find, either insoluble in water, 

 or at least not easily soluble ; by what means were the 

 precipitates produced ; and whence came this prodigious 

 mass of waters ? Upon these unanswered questions de- 

 pend others no less important. The aquatic animals of a 

 former world undoubtedly lived in this sea ; otherwise, we 

 must admit of another sea free from heterogeneous mate- 

 rials. But did these animals continue to live in it during 

 the whole process of precipitation ; and did this process 

 proceed so slowly and imperceptibly, that animal life was 

 not interrupted by it, and that only remains of dead 

 animals, such as the skeletons of fishes, and the covering 



