XXVI LIFE AND WORKS OF NICOLAUS STENO 



been recorded in the Genesis. It was further presumed that the sur* 

 face of the Earth, together with its animal and vegetable life, had un* 

 dergone no essential changes, apart from those which had been occa* 

 sioned by the Deluge and the inundations and volcanic eruptions 

 mentioned by the historical writers. As to the difference between the 

 various strata of the Earth the knowledge of those days was very im* 

 perfect, and as to the origin of the several strata it was practically nil. 

 The fossils occurring at certain places were, as has just been mentioned, 

 looked upon as having been formed on the spot by means of an imma* 

 nent force, or produced by the Creator himself. Whichever the view 

 taken, there was no difficulty in accounting for the occurrence ot bo* 

 dies, which e. g. resembled sharks' teeth or other parts of animals living 

 in the sea, at places far from the sea, nay, even on mountains. If, on 

 the contrary, these bodies were looked upon from the point of view of 

 having really once belonged to animals, which had their home in the 

 sea, there arose the apparently invincible difficulty of explaining how 

 they could have reached these places far from the sea, where they are 

 found, often in great numbers. 



The contents ot Steno's work will, as has been mentioned above, 

 not be reported in this place; only its main lines will be set forth, 

 and these as briefly as possible. After a thorough observation of the 

 bodies exactly resembling animals or parts of animals which are to be 

 found in the earth, and after a minute examination of the qualities ot 

 the soil, in which they are found, Steno arrived at the absolutely un« 

 questionable result that these bodies are remains of animals, and that 

 these very bodies, if in every respect resembling animals living in the 

 sea, must be the remains of such marine animals, and, finally, that 

 they, together with the earth in which they are imbedded, must be 

 sedimentary deposits. Steno finds that while certain strata of the 

 Earth contain such bodies — fossils — there are others which never cons 

 tain them, and the latter he rightly looked upon as the oldest, those 

 which have formed the original Earth, on the surface of which the 

 fossiliferous layers have been deposited as sediments of the sea. He 

 further shows that each of the fossiliferous layers originally had an 

 upper and a lower horizontal and level boundary plane, naturally 

 produced by the way in which it has been formed. An exception from 

 this rule is only the oldest and deepest fossiliferous layer, the upper 

 surface of which, it is true, is horizontal and level, while the lower one 

 has the form which corresponds with the surface of the non*fossilife* 

 rous layer beneath it. Steno furthermore points out that at those rather 

 numerous places, where the fossiliferous layers are limited by planes, 

 which are not horizontal, the limiting planes are still level and parallel 

 to one another, tor which reason their situation, deviating as it is from 

 the original horizontality, must be looked upon as secondary, either 



