40 



PLOT.— LISTER— LEIBNITZ. 



[Cxi. III. 



amongst the more 



Plot— Lister, 1678. 



for it conceded that the position of fossil bodies could not be 

 accounted for by the diluvial theory. 



—In the meantime, the doctrine that 

 fossil shells had never belonged to real animals maintained its 

 ground in England, where the agitation of the question be^an 

 at a much later period. Dr. Plot, in his < Natural History of 

 Oxfordshire 5 (1677), attributed to a 'plastic virtue latent in the 

 earth ' the origin of fossil shells and fishes ; and Lister, to 

 his accurate account of British shells, in 1678, added the fossil 

 species, under the appellation of turbinated and bivalve stones. 

 ' Either/ said he, ' these were terriginous, or, if otherwise, the 

 animals they so exactly represent have become extinct.' This 

 writer appears to have been the first who was aware of the 

 continuity over large districts of the principal groups of strata 

 in the British series, and who proposed the construction of 



Leibnitz ,1680. 



maps 



mathematic 



When 



his 'Protogcea' in 1680. He imagined this planet to have 

 been originally a burning luminous mass, which ever since its 

 creation has been undergoing refrigeration, 

 crust had cooled down sufficiently to allow the vapours to be 

 condensed, they fell, and formed a universal ocean, covering 

 the loftiest mountains, and investing the whole globe. The 

 crust, as it consolidated f 

 vesicular and cavernous structure ; and being rent in some 

 places, allowed the water to rush into the subterranean hol- 

 lows, whereby the level of the primeval ocean was lowered. 

 The breaking in of these vast caverns is supposed to have 

 given rise to the dislocated and deranged position of the 



strata ' which Stfvnn "harl 



om 



same 



tions communicated 



movements 



m 



cumbent 



waters, whence great inundations ensued. The waters, after 



they had been thus agitated, deposited their sedimentary 

 matter during intervals of quiescence, and hence the various 

 stony and earthy strata. ' We may recognise, therefore/ says 

 Leibnitz, ' a double origin of primitive masses, the one by 



* See Conybeare and Phillips, ' Outlines of the Geology of England and 



Wales/ p. 12. 





t 



