



1 xW 



Ch. Ill] 



HOOKE ON EXTINCT SPECIES. 



43 



It Avas objected to Hooke, that his doctrine of the extinction 

 of species derogated from the wisdom and power of the Omni- 

 potent Creator ; but he answered, that, as individuals die, 



termination 



Holy 



Writ 



rating, and tending to its final dissolution ; < and as, when 

 that shall happen/all the species will be lost, why not some 



some 



manner 



the 



which shells had been conveyed into the higher parts of ' 

 Alps, Apennines, and Pyrenean hills, and the interior of conti- 

 nents in general.' These and other appearances, he said, 

 mi^ht have been brought about by earthquakes, ' which have 



mountains 



into land, and land into seas, made rivers where there were 

 none before, and swallowed up others that formerly were, 

 &c. &c. ; and which, since the creation of the world, have 

 wrought many changes on the superficial parts of the earth, 

 and have been the instruments of placing shells, bones, 



much 



astonishment, we find them.' t This doctrine, it is true, had 

 been laid down in terms almost equally explicit by Strabo, to 

 explain the occurrence of fossil shells in the interior of conti- 

 nents, and to that geographer, and other writers of antiquity, 



Hooke 



system was an important step in the progress of modern 



science. 



Hooke enumerated all the examples known to him of 



tions, he mentions some sHicified palm- cified wood of the Irawadi should have 



wood brought from Africa, on which M. 

 de la Hire had read a memoir to the 

 Royal Academy of France (June, 1692), 

 wherein he had pointed out, not only the 

 tubes running the length of the trunk, 

 but the roots at one extremity. De la 

 Hire, says Hooke, also treated of cer- 

 tain trees found petrified in the < river 

 that passes by Bakan, in the kingdom of made in the Indies by the Jesuits. 



attracted attention more than one hun- 

 dred years ago. Remarkable discoveries 

 have been made there in later times of 

 fossil animals and vegetables, by Mr. 

 Crawfurd and Dr. Wallich. — See Geol. 

 Trans, vol. ii. part iii. p. 377, second 

 series. De la Hire cites Father Duchatz, 

 in the second volume of " Observations 



Ava, and which has for the space often 

 leagues the virtue of petrifying wood/ 

 It is an interesting fact that the sili- 



* Posth. Works, Lecture, May 29, 



1689. 



f Posth. Works, p. 312. 



. ' 



