114 ORGANIC REMAINS. 



man of enlarged views in geology ought to find the best evidence of 

 important truths, and the means of correcting serious errors. For these 

 important ends, it is necessary that every known locality in the strata 

 should be recorded of every fossil. For want of this precaution, fossils 

 have been often stated to be characteristic of a particular rock, when in 

 truth they occur in several others ; and thus a crowd of errors have 

 been introduced, which have obscured the truths taught by Mr. Smith, 

 and given occasion for denying that a comparison of their imbedded 

 fossils is useful in identifying and discriminating the strata. Deeply 

 impressed with the interest and importance of this subject, I have 

 sought the means of placing it in a clear and correct light ; and am not 

 without hopes, that whether my views be received or rejected, my state- 

 ments will be found unprejudiced, and, though incomplete, correct. 



I shall now endeavour to investigate some of the general laws, re- 

 specting the relation of fossils to the strata, which are either already 

 recognised and admitted among geologists, or unfolded in the following 

 pages. The inquiry naturally divides itself into two parts, according as 

 the strata are considered, with respect to their chemical and mineralogical 

 composition, or their relative antiquity. Considering rocks as definite 

 chemical compounds, (an assumption sufficiently exact in a limited dis- 

 trict,) we may inquire if fossils of the same kind belong to strata of 

 the same character. 



A decisive answer in the affirmative will suggest itself to him who 

 observes the agreement in this respect, between the transition limestone 

 and the mountain limestone, in their bivalve shells and trilobites, between 

 this latter rock and the oolites in their astreze, turbinolias, and milleporae, 

 and between the oolites and the chalk, in some of their echini and tere- 

 bratulae. But this analogy vanishes altogether when we attempt to 

 extend it to a considerable series of fossils ; no other strata than the 

 limestones exhibit it in a striking degree, and few tribes of organic 

 remains can be quoted in illustration, except the radiaria. On the con- 

 trary, the shells of the mountain limestone, oolite, and chalk, are all 





