32 



EARLY ITALIAN WRITERS.— FKACASTORO. 



[Ch. III. 



speedily have been removed by the fresh information obtained 

 almost immediately afterwards, respecting the structure of 

 fossil remains, and of their living analogues. 



But the clear and philosophical views of Fracastoro were 

 disregarded, and the talent and the argumentative powers of 

 the learned were doomed for three centuries to be wasted in 



simple and preliminary 



first, whether fossil remains had 



ever belonged 



to living 



creatures ; and, secondly, whether, if this be admitted, all 

 the phenomena could not be explained by the deluge of 

 Noah. It had been the general belief of the Christian world 

 down to the period now under consideration, that the origin 

 of this planet was not more remote than a few thousand 

 vears ; and that since the creation the deluge was the only 

 great catastrophe by which considerable change had been 

 wrought on the earth's surface. On the other hand, the 

 opinion was scarcely less general, that the final dissolution 

 of our system was an event to be looked for at no distant 

 period. The era, it is true, of the expected 

 passed away ; and for five hundred years after the fatal hour 

 when the annihilation of the planet had been looked for, the 

 monks remained in undisturbed enjoyment of rich grants of 

 land bequeathed to them by pious donors, who, in the pre- 

 amble of deeds beginning < appropinquante mundi termino ' 

 < appropinquante magno judicii die,' left lasting monu- 

 ments of the popular delusion.* 



in the sixteenth century it had become 



mi 



But 



although 



necessary to interpret certain prophecies respecting the mil- 



more 



to the future conflagration of the world, we find, in the 

 speculations of the early geologists, perpetual allusion to 

 such an approaching catastrophe ; while in all that regarded 

 the antiquity of the earth, no modification whatever of the 

 opinions of the dark ages had been effected. Considerable 

 alarm was at first excited when the attempt was made to 

 invalidate, by physical proofs, an article of faith so generally 



about the period when the good King 





* In Sicily, in particular, the title- 

 deeds of many valuable grants of land 

 to the monasteries are headed by such 

 preambles, composed by the testators 



Roger was expelling the Saracens from 



that island. 



