234 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1746. 



blish his own system, grounded on subterraneous fire, with various arguments of 

 his own, and with the refutation of those of others. He first lays down some 

 general principles, according to Sir Isaac Newton, &c. and then applies to them 

 several instances for supporting his system. 



The finst is the new island risen out of the sea in the year 1707, near the 

 island Santorini in the Archipelago. The second is a mountain, which rose out 

 of the earth in 1538, near Pozzuolo in the kingdom of Naples, overwhelmed 

 the little town Tripergula, and dried up a navigable lake named Lucrano; being 

 now called the New Mountain, equal in height to a neighbouring old one, called 

 Monte Barbaro. From the circumstances attending those events, he endeavours 

 to prove his new hypothesis. 



He calls in aid the several eruptions of the mountains Vesuvius and Etna; and 

 then forms his thesis, viz. " That marine animals and productions, for instance, 

 shells, &c. which are now found in high mountains, were first generated in the 

 sea; but when those mountains were raised, by subterraneous fire, above the 

 surface of the sea, they were petrified so as they now appear." This thesis Moro 

 endeavours to support, by giving the detail of the 12 several strata found in the 

 territories of Modena, when they are digging for wells, mentioned by Wood- 

 ward, Camerarivis, Vallisnieri, and Ramazzini, whose remarks, as well as the 

 newer ones of Whiston and Bourguet, he will not allow to be satisfactory; the 

 greatest difirculty being this, that, fi-om the nature of some of those strata, it 

 seems that the sea has twice covered the plain of Modena, now above some 

 hundreds of feet above the level of the sea; and that from another stratum it 

 may be inferred, that, in the intervals betwetm those overflowings of the sea, the 

 land has been inhabited and cultivated. His thesis he endeavours to support by 

 a remarkable passage from Pliny, book ii, chap. 87. Ingens terrarum portentum 

 L. Marcio, Sex. Julio Coss. in agro mutinensi! namque montes duo inter se 

 concurrerunt, crepitu maximo assultantes, recedentesque ; inter eos flamma 

 fumoque in coelum exeunte, &c. 



Dr. Ehrhart compares with this the several strata found in digging in the 

 neighbourhood of Memmingen last year. 



Moro touches next on the hypothesis of some, that the sea increases about 

 1 foot in height in about 1 centuries; and of some others, that it decreases 5 

 feet in 1 century; as also, how the saltness of the sea may be deduced from his 

 hypothesis. 



Further Observations and Experiments on the Passion Flower, and its Farina. 

 By Mr. Badcock. N° 479, P- 166. 



After the calix, petala, &c. are stripped off, the flower first presents to view 

 a double row of purple threads: these threads appear as in fig. 2, pi. 5, on which 



