20 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND P ALTEON TOLOGY. 



j axis of rotation or the earth's centre of gravity had undergone 

 ] changes of position. 



Hooke further gave some valuable hints about the alteration 

 of organic remains by the process of petrefaction, and cited as 

 examples the petrified stems of trees in Africa and in the 

 kingdom of Ava. His explanation of the elevated position in 

 which fossil marine organisms are now found was based upon 

 his theory of earthquakes. Earthquakes, he thought, trans- 

 formed plains into mountains, and continents into ocean 

 basins. He attributed earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to 

 the agency of subterranean fire. 



Scarcely had the organic origin and historical significance of 

 fossils been successfully vindicated, than the doctrinal in- 

 fluences of the day stepped in and claimed all fossil forms as 

 vestiges from the earlier creation interred in the earth during 

 the great Deluge. The " Diluvialfcts" formed a powerful party 

 amongst the geologists of the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries, and were warmly supported by the Church. In 

 England, Woodward, Burnet, and Whiston had strong 

 convictions in this direction; while in Germany, Wedel 

 and Baier, and in Switzerland Johann Scheuchzer, taught 

 that all fossils had been spread through Europe during the 

 Flood. 



Scheuchzer had in his first work {Specimen Lithogr. 

 Helvetica Curioscz^ 1702) regarded fossils as sports of nature, 

 but under the influence of Woodward's work, which he 

 translated into Latin, he became an enthusiastic believer in 

 the theory of a diluvial distribution of fossils. His natural 

 history of Switzerland contains a special chapter, which 

 professes to deal with the fossil remains left by the Flood in 

 Switzerland. Towards the close of his life, Scheuchzer 

 thought he had discovered in the beds of Oeningen "the bony 

 skeleton of one of these infamous men whose sins brought 

 upon the world the dire misfortune of the deluge." But the 

 supposed homo dtluviihom Oeningen was afterwards determined 

 by Cuvier to have been a gigantic Salamander, and was called 

 Andrias Scheuchzeri in honour of its Swiss discoverer. The 

 original specimen of Scheuchzer's Andrias is now in the^ 

 Teyler Museum at Haarlem. 



The strong personality of Scheuchzer and his success as a 

 teacher won for him during his life-time a large circle of 

 scientific supporters, and contributed not a little to a more 



