214 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



SCIENCE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (CONTINUED). 



The Study of the Earth neglected during the Dark Ages — Prejudices 

 concerning the Creation of the World— Attempts to Account for 

 Buried Fossils -Palissy, the Potter, first asserted that Fossil-shells 

 are real Shells— Scilla's Work on the Shells of Calabria, 1670 — 

 Woodward's Description of DiflFerent Formations, 1695 — Lazzaro 

 Moro one of the first to give a true explanation of the facts — Abra- 

 ham Werner lectures on Mineralogy and Geology, 1775 — Disputes 

 between the Neptunists and Vulcanists — Dr. Hutton first teaches 

 that it is by the Study of the Present that we can understand the 

 Past — Theory of Hutton — Sir J. Hall's Experiments upon Melted 

 Rocks— Hutton discovers Granite Veins in Glen Tilt — William 

 Smith, the * Father of English Geologists ' — His Geological Map of 

 England. 



Early Prejudices concerning the Formation of the 

 Bocks. — You will no doubt remember that when we were 

 speaking of the science of the Greeks, we learnt (p. 11) that 

 Pythagoras made many interesting observations about the 

 crust of the earth, which led him to say that the sea and 

 land must have changed places more than once since the 

 creation of the world. Especially he pointed out that sea- 

 shells are found inland^ deeply buried in the hills ; and that 

 the sea eats away land on the coast in some places, while in 

 others earth is washed down by the rivers and laid at the 

 bottom of the ocean. 



We have now passed over more than 2,000 years since 

 the time of Pythagoras, and you will notice that we have 



