THE EAiiXlL 31 



losophers as productions, not of the sea, but of the earth. " As 

 we find that spars," said they, "always shoot into peculiar shapes, 

 so these seeming snails, cockles, and mussel-shells, are only 

 gportive forms that nature assumes amongst others of its mineral 

 varieties : they have the shape of fish, indeed, but they have 

 always been terrestrial substances." ' 



With this plausible solution mankind were for a long time 

 content; but upon closer inquiry, they were obliged to alter 

 their opinion. It was found that these shells had in every re. 

 spect the properties of animal, and not of mineral nature. They 

 were found exactly of the same weight with their fellow shells 

 upon shore. They answered all the chemical trials in the same 

 manner as sea-shells do. Their parts, when dissolved, had the 

 same appearance to \iew, the same smell and taste. They had 

 the same effects in medicine, when inwardly administered ; 

 and, in a word, were so exactly conformable to marine bodies?, 

 that they had all the accidental concretions grooving to them, 

 (such as pearls, corals, and smaller shells,) which are found in 

 shells just gathered on the shore. They were, therefore, from 

 these considerations, given back to the sea; but the wonder 

 was, how to account for their coming so far from their own 

 natural element upon land.^ 



As this naturally gave rise to many conjectures, it is not to 

 be wondered that some among them have been very extraordi- 

 nary. An ItaKan, quoted by Mr Buffon, supposes them to have 

 been deposited in the earth at the time of the crusades, by the 

 pilgrims who retiuned from Jerusalem; who gathering them 

 upon the sea-shore, in their return carried them to their different 

 places of habitation. But this conjecturer seems to have but a 

 very inadequate idea of their numbers. At Touraine, in France , 

 more than a hundred miles from the sea, there is a plain of abou r 

 nine leagues long, and as many broad, whence the peasants ot 

 the country supply themselves with marl for manuring theu 

 lands. They seldom dig deeper than twenty feet ; and the whole 

 plain is composed of the same materials, which are shells of 

 various kinds, without the smallest portion of earth between 

 them. Here then is a large space, in which are deposited 

 millions of tons of shells, that pilgrims could not have collected, 



2 LowtUorp'3 Abridgment, Phil. Trans, vol. ii. p. 433. 

 3 Woodward, p. 13. 



