ORIGIN OF THE PROBLEM 7 



and such resulting consequences as even the simplest 

 may seize on and understand. Nature must be her 

 own advocate, and wisdom, though unstudied, must be 

 the judge/ He also expressed himself strongly against 

 the lusus naturce. In his paper Piscium querelce et 

 vindicice (1708) he makes the Fishes raise objections 

 that they are not considered as the original parents of 

 the present fishes but are regarded as of ' mineral stone 

 and marl births/ l 



In his splendid work ' Physica sacra ' 2 he goes through 

 the separate groups of animals which were destroyed 

 by the Flood. His copperplates are excellent, his 

 added verses less so. 3 



With regard to the origin of the mountain ranges 

 he had also some wonderful ideas. When the Gemusz 

 (vegetable debris), into which the earth's strata had been 

 changed by the Flood, dried again, the crust burst and 

 there were heavings and sinkings. That earthquakes 

 and the like had been able to form the Alps was, in his 

 idea, a ' lame opinion/ 



1 K. v. Zittel : Geschichte der Geologie und Paldontologie bis Ende des 

 19 Jahrhunderts, Munich-Leipzig, 1899, 24. 



2 I, p. 61, Augsburg und Ulm, 1731. 



3 Since he found remains of all animal forms, he deduced that all 

 animal life was annihilated, and, from that, that the Deluge was universal : 



' Since all that lived and moved therein was drowned 

 'Tis clear the Flood prevailed the whole world round.' 



(p. 64, Translation.) 



' The man of evil luck's remains likewise from out the ground 

 Have now been dug, and for it many reasons have been found.' 



(p. 66, Translation.) 



This ' man of evil luck ' (' a disturbed skeleton of an old sinner ') even- 

 tually proved to be the skeleton of a gigantic Salamander (now in Haarlem). 



