VOL. XLIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 13 



insensibly off by evaporation ; and who, as well as BufFon, attributes the number 

 of sea-shells, found fossil, to the length of time he supposes the now inhabited 

 parts of the earth to have been covered with v/ater, seem not to have given suf- 

 ficient attention to an observation of consequence, which is, that the greatest 

 part of our fossil-shells are entirely foreign to Europe, and belong to the equator 

 or tropics. Buffon himself seems to have been somewhat aware, how much this 

 observation might make against his theory; for he observes in answer to it, that 

 not to mention such shell-fish as inhabit the bottom of the sea, and hence, 

 being difficult to be caught, are regarded as unknown and foreign, though they 

 may be produced in our seas; by comparing our fossil shells with their analogous 

 living shell-fish, we shall find among them more shells belonging to our own 

 coasts than of foreign ones; for example, that pectens, pectuncles, muscles, 

 oysters, sea-glands, buccina, sea-ears, patellae, &c. which we find fossil almost 

 every where, are certainly productions of our own seas. But unluckily for our 

 ingenious theorist, these shells, he mentions as common on our coasts, are pro- 

 duced in all the seas of the globe, and are equally inhabitants of the equator and 

 poles; though we frequently discover fossil species of them, which are peculiar 

 to the warmer climates. 



Since then it is certain, that all our fossil shells are foreign to our climates, 

 except such as are common to the whole globe, we may conclude, that BufFon's 

 theory is in this respect absolutely defective. Besides, we find not only a very 

 great quantity of fossil shells and other marine bodies, but also a great number of 

 impressions of foreign plants, mostly of the capillary kind, on slates and other 

 stones; and it is now certain that all the fossil wood of Loughneagh in Ireland 

 (as in most other places where such wood is found) has been produced in a dif- 

 ferent climate; and, if he mistook not, had been compared and found to agree 

 with recent specimens from America. Bones, and even entire skeletons of rhi- 

 noceroses, elephants, and other foreign land animals, are discovered pretty com- 

 monly through all Europe, and in Ireland very large horns of American moose- 

 deer have been dug up. All these substances are commonly found near to, or 

 in the same strata with, fossil shells, and other marine bodies; and all of them, 

 whether original productions of sea or land, appear evidently to have been depo- 

 sited in the places where we now find them, by one and the same cause. To 

 account for these phenomena, Dr. W. thinks that BufFon must admit a universal 

 deluge, such as is related in the holy scripture; and if a deluge of this kind is 

 once admitted, why-should we assign other causes for the transportation of marine 

 and terrestrial bodies into climates foreign to those where they were produced .> 

 why, say Buffon and the author of Telliamed, because many thousands of years 

 seem to have been requisite for the production of so immense a quantity of sea- 

 shells, as those we find every where fossil ; and besides, says the author of TeU 



