INTRODUCTION. 3 



Hesiod's "Theogoriy" is the oldest of the Greek cosmogonies, 

 but from what we know of it, the speculations of this early 

 Greek philosopher were rather brilliant flights of fancy than 

 efforts to assimilate observations of natural phenomena. 

 Thus, the world is said to have taken origin from a primeval 

 chaos, and to have given birth to the heavens, the mountains, 

 and the oceans; then the races of gods sprang from the earth 

 and the heavens. 



Thales of Miletus, the contemporary of Croesus and Cyrus, 

 considered that everything, animate and inanimate, was derived 

 from water. His gifted scholar, Anaximander (born circa 611 

 B.C.), arrived at a higher conception of Nature. He depicted 

 an infinite, all-pervading primeval substance, possessing an 

 inherent power of movement from the first. The energy of 

 this primeval matter determined heat and cold, and the mix- 

 ture of these conditions gave origin to the development of 

 fluid; the earth, the air, and a surrounding circle of fire 

 differentiated from the fluid state. The stars sprang from fire 

 and air; the earth rested in the centre of the whole universe, 

 and under the influence of the sun brought forth the animals 

 which inhabit it. These, including human beings, were at 

 first fish-like in form, consistent with the semi-fluid state of 

 their environment. Thus Anaximander had the merit of 

 appreciating certain physical states as attributes of universal 

 matter; his work, TTC/H <vo-eo>s, is unfortunately lost. 



Xenophanes of Colophon (born 614 B.C.) is reported by 

 later writers to have observed the shell remains of pelagic 

 mollusca on mountains in the middle of the land, impressions of 

 laurel leaves in the rocks of Paros, as well as various evidences 

 of the former presence of the sea on the ground of Malta, and 

 to have attributed those appearances to periodic invasions of 

 the sea during which men and their dwellings must have been 

 submerged. The historian Xanthus of Sardis (circa 500 "B.C.) 

 also drew attention to the occurrence of fossil shells in 

 Armenia, Phrygia, and Lydia, far from the sea, and concluded 

 that the localities where such remains occur had been for- 

 merly the bed of the ocean, and that the limits of the dry 

 land and the ocean were constantly undergoing change. 



Herodotus (born 484 B.C.) mentioned the presence of fossil 

 shells of marine bivalves in the mountains of Egypt and near 

 the oasis of Ammon. From this fact, as well as from the salt 

 constitution of the rocks, Herodotus formed the opinion that 



