cxii NOTES. 



C 426 ) p. 345. On the supposed " primitive transformation" of organized 

 or unorganized matter into plants and animals, compare Ehrenberg, in Pog- 

 gendorff's Annalen der Physik, Bd. xxiv. S. 1 48, and the same author's 

 Infusionsthierchen, S. 121 and 525, with Joh. Miiller, Physiologic des Men- 

 <hen, (4te Aufl.) Bd. i. S. 817. It seems to me particularly deserving of 

 notice, that St. Augustine, in treating the question, " how islands may have 

 been provided with new plants and animals after the Deluge," shews himself in 

 BO respect disinclined to the hypothesis of what has been called " spontaneous 

 generation" (generatio sequivoca, spontanea aut primaria). He says, "If 

 animals have not been conveyed to the remoter islands by angels, or possibly 

 by inhabitants of continents addicted to the chase, they must have sprung 

 directly from the earth ; though in this case the question arises, why all 

 kinds of animals should have been assembled in the Ark," " Si e terra 

 eiortse sunt (bestise) secundum originem primam, quando dixit Deus : produ- 

 cat terra animam vivam ! multo clarius apparet, non tarn reparandorum 

 animalium causa, quam figurandarum variarum gentium (?) propter ecclesise 

 sacramentum in Area fuisse omnia genera, si in insulis, quo transire non pos- 

 sent, multa animalia terra produxit." Augustinus de Civitate Dei, lib. xvi. 

 cap. 7 (Opera, ed. Monach. Ordinis S. Benedicti, T. vii. Venet. 1732, p. 422). 

 Two centuries prior to the Bishop of Hippo, we find by extracts from Trogus 

 Pompeius that he had established a similar connection between the "generatio 

 primaria," the drying of the ancient world, and the high table-land of Asia, 

 as is found in the hypothesis of the great Linnaeus, between the terraces of 

 Paradise and the reveries of the eighteenth century respecting the fabled 

 Atlantis. " Quod si omnes quondam terrse submersse profundo fuerunt, pro- 

 fecto editissimam quamque partem decurrentibus aquis primum detectam ; 

 hnmillimo autem solo eandem aquam diutissime immoratam et quanto prior 

 quaeque pars terrarum siccata sit, tanto prius animalia generare coepisse. Porro 

 Scythiam adco editiorem omnibus terris esse ut cuncta flumina ibi nata in 

 Mseotium, turn deinde in Ponticum et JEgyptium mare decurrant." Justinus, 

 lib. ii. cap. 1. The erroneous supposition of Scythia being an elevated table- 

 land is so ancient, that we find it very distinctly expressed in Hippocrates (De 

 Acre et Aquis, cap. vi. 96, Coray) : he says, " Scythia consists of elevated 

 barren plains, which, without being crowned with mountains, rise higher and 

 higher towards the north." 



O p. 345. Humboldt, Aphorism! ex Physiologia chemica plantarum, 

 in the Mora Fribergensis subterranea, 1793, p. 178. 



