15 



substances, which had undergone the process of petrifaction, had 

 not, in those ages, escaped observation. 



Xenophanes,the founder of the Eleatic sect, who wrote upwards 

 of 500 years before Christ, maintained that God and the world were 

 the same ; and contended for the eternity of the universe. In sup- 

 port of the latter opinion, he dwelt much upon the circumstance of 

 petrified shells being found, in the internal parts of mountains, and, 

 in the bowels of the earth. He related, that, in the quarries of Sy- 

 racuse, the impressions of fishes existed ; that the impression of a 

 small fish was found, deeply imbedded in a rock at Paros ; and, that 

 almost every species of marine animals had been thus preserved ; 

 he inferring, from the appearance of these extraordinary pheno- 

 mena, that these places must, in very distant ages, have been co- 

 vered with the sea*. 



Herodotus, who wrote 440 years before Christ, speaks particu- 

 larly of shells existing in the mountains of Egypt ; and concludes, 

 from this circumstance, and the saltish emanations which injured 

 the pyramids, that the sea had gradually retired from these partsf. 



Theophrastus was supposed to have written a book, entirely on 

 petrifactions, and which though ranked amongst his lost works, was 

 imagined to have been in the possession of Pliny; and to have 

 yielded him some portion of assistance, in that part of his Natural 

 History. 



Eratosthenes, who lived 200 years before Christ, when inquiring 

 into the figure ofthe earth, also considered it as a question worthy 

 of investigation How it could have happened, that vast numbers 

 of oyster, and other shells, should be found scattered in many 

 places at a very considerable distance from the sea. This phenome- 

 non had also been noticed by Strato, and by Xanthus of Lydia, as 

 well as by Strabo himself; who refers to and corroborates their re- 

 marks in the first book of his Geography ; particularising some of 



* la Originis Philosophumenis, cap. xiv. p. 100. t Lib. ii. sect. xii. 



