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CHAPTER IV. 



Organic Remains of the Eastern Part of Yorkshire. 



JL HAT vegetable and animal remains should be enclosed in hard rocks, 

 in prodigious abundance and of exquisite beauty, has been a subject of 

 admiration from very early periods. The difficulty of conceiving how 

 the rocks could be so softened and dissolved by the deluge, (to which all 

 geological phenomena were attributed in the 17th century,) as to admit 

 shells and plants into their substance, induced Plot and Llwyd, and even 

 Ray and Lister, to deny that these fossil bodies had ever been living 

 beings. This absurdity gradually yielded to the talent and industry of 

 Woodward ; and is remembered only to be ridiculed. It is now univer- 

 sally admitted by naturalists that fossils are the reliquiae of beings once 

 endowed with life ; and that all the difference in appearance between 

 them and analogous recent objects, has been caused by circumstances 

 attendant on their long sepulture in the earth. 



The earth contains reliques of perhaps the most ancient plants and 

 animals which existed on this globe, and they lie enclosed in rocks of 

 different chemical composition, at various depths and of unequal anti- 

 quity. According to their original qualities, and the circumstances in 

 which they were placed, fossils have undergone different changes of sub- 

 stance. 



Few organic bodies are preserved in the earth, except such as were 

 originally of a durable constitution. Remains of plants are common 

 in coal districts, wood is found in many limestone rocks, nuts and hard 

 fruits have been obtained from the Isle of Sheppey : zoophytes of many 

 kinds fill our limestone and sandstone rocks ; thus the horny substance 

 of spongi*, and the calcareous mass of corals is accurately preserved : 

 the columns of crinoidal animals, and the hard crusts of echini are very 



