110 



zation, &c. and which must have occupied an immense 

 period of time for their completion. 



How it may be with primitive rocks, I shall not at- 

 tempt to say in the present instance ; but -a careful ex- 

 amination of the structure of the secondary kind, which 

 I have already mentioned, will by no means justify such 

 an opinion. On the contrary, there are certain indica- 

 tions in many of them, which justly warrant the belief, 

 that their formation must have been inconceivably quick 

 and rapid, and particularly those which contained the 

 remains of organized bodies of fishes and other ani- 

 mals, in a state of preservation so perfect, as to enable 

 the naturalist to determine, on the slightest inspection, 

 the class, order, and species, to which they severally 

 belong. 



This conclusion is drawn from the following cir- 

 cumstances : 



1st. Fishes and other animals, found enveloped in 

 solid limestone, plaster, or slate, and possessing their 

 natural form and character, afford strong reasons to 

 conclude, that had the precipitation and formation of 

 the rock, or substance in which they are contained, 

 been slow or gradual, the superincumbent weight must 

 have had a great tendency to have destroyed their na- 

 tural form, by compressing them, while soft and yield- 

 ing, into a thin and almost shapeless mass. 



But this is not the case. We see innumerable in- 

 stances in the sections of various kinds of secondary 

 marbles of Europe, where different species of the 

 tribes of molluscae and shell fish, are represented al- 

 most as perfect, in every particular that relates to their 



