SCIENCE OF FOSSIL LIFE 323 



regarding fossils (1669) were based on the dissection of the 

 head of a shark, by which means he showed an almost exact 

 correspondence between certain glossy fossils and the teeth 

 of living sharks. He applied his reasoning, that like effects 

 imply like causes, to all manner of fossils, and clearly estab- 

 lished the point that they should be regarded as the remains 

 of animals and plants. The method of investigation prac- 

 ticed by Steno was that "which has consciously or uncon- 

 sciously guided the researches of palaeontologists ever since." 



Although his conclusions were well supported, they did not 

 completely overthrow the opposing views, and become a fixed 

 basis in geology. When, at the close of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury and the beginning of the nineteenth, fossil remains were 

 being exhumed in great quantities in the Paris basin, Cuvier,, 

 the great French naturalist, reestablished the doctrine that 

 fossils are the remains of ancient life. x\n account of this 

 will be given presently, and in the mean time we shall go on 

 with the consideration of a question raised by the conclusions 

 of Steno. 



Fossil Deposits Ascribed to the Flood. — After it began to 

 be reluctantly conceded that fossils might possibly be the 

 remains of former generations of animals and plants, there 

 followed a period characterized by the general belief that these 

 entombed forms had been deposited at the time of the 

 ^losaic deluge. This was the prevailing \iew in the eight- 

 eenth century. As observation increased and the extent and 

 variety of fossil life became known, as well as the positions 

 in which fossils were found, it became more difficult to hold 

 this view with any appearance of reason. Large forms were 

 found on the tops of mountains, and also lighter forms were 

 found near the bottom. ^lilcs upon miles of superimposed 

 rocks were discovered, all of them bearing quantities of 

 animal forms, and the inter]:)rctation that these had been 

 killed and distributed by a deluge became very strained. But 



