178 ORGANIC REMAINS. 



rocks abounding with oysters and other shells, in mountains remote 

 from the sea.* 



The petrifactions of our district have been noticed at an early 

 period. The jet, which is found here in considerable quantity, and 

 which is obviously a kind of petrified wood, is mentioned, as Camden 

 observes, by Solinus and other ancient writers : and the Whitby 

 snake-stones have an honourable place in the early history of our 

 abbey, being connected with the fabled miracles of Lady Hilda. 



It is only within these few years, however, that the nature of such 

 remains has been properly investigated, and correct ideas of them 

 have begun to be formed. The learned, at no remote period, were 

 wont to regard them as mere sports of nature, produced by an occult 

 plastic power. Mr. Charlton, in his History of Whitby, published 

 only 43 years ago, after describing the petrified shells and wood 

 found near Whitby, with what he calls petrified bones of men and 

 horses, declares himself fully persuaded, according to the opinion of 

 Dr. Lister and others, "that none of these peti'ifactions were ever real 

 animals, or in any other state than that in which we now find them." 

 Such notions are now universally exploded ; and though men of 

 science still differ as to the time and the manner in which these 

 substances have been imbedded in their rocky habitations, all agree 

 in pronouncing them to have been real animals' or vegetables, at 

 some remote era. 



Viewed in this light, how interesting must these relies appear! 

 They are the medals of the natural history of our globe, recording the 

 changes which it has undergone, and setting before our eyes innumer- 

 able specimens of nature's early productions, a part of the animated 

 stores with which the sea and the land were once replenished, at a 

 period far beyond the limits of profane history. They carry back 



* See otlier testimonies of this nature, in Parkinson's Organic Remains, I. p. 15, &c. 



