50 



ITALIAN GEOLOGISTS.— VALLISKEEI. 



[Ch. III. 



Fishes ' 



cium Querelse et Vindicise,' a work of 



zoological merit, in which he gave some good plates and 

 descriptions of fossil fish. Among other conclusions he 

 laboured to prove that the earth had been remodelled at the 



Pluche, also, in 1732, wrote to the same effect; 



deluge. 



while Holbach, in 1753, after considering the various attempts 

 to refer all the ancient formations to the flood of Noah, 

 exposed the inadequacy of this cause. 



^Italian Geologists — Vallisneri. — I return with pleasure to 

 the geologists of Italy, who preceded, as has been already 

 shown, the naturalists of other countries in their investiga- 

 tions into the ancient history of the earth, and who still 

 maintained a decided pre-eminence. They refuted and ridi- 

 culed the physico-theological systems of Burnet, Winston, 

 and Woodward ;* while Yallisneri,f in his comments on the 

 Woodwardian theory, remarked how much the interests of 

 religion, as well as those of sound philosophy, had suffered 

 by perpetually mixing up the sacred writings with questions 

 in physical science. The works of this author were rich in 



original observations. 



He 



of the marine deposits of Italy, their geographical extent, and 

 most characteristic organic remains. In his treatise 'On 

 the Origin of Springs,' he explained their dependence on 

 the order, and often on the dislocations, of the strata, and 

 reasoned philosophically against the opinions of those who 

 regarded the disordered state of the earth's crust as exhibit- 

 ing signs of the wrath of God for the sins of man. He found 

 himself under the necessity of contending, in his preliminary 

 chapter, against St. Jerome, and four other principal inter- 

 preters of Scripture, besides several professors of divinity, 

 < that springs did not flow by subterranean siphons and cavi- 

 ties from the sea upwards, losing their saltness in the passage, 



to rest on the infallible testi- 



made 



ony of Holy Writ. 

 Although reluctant to 



generalise 



on 



the rich, materials 



* Ramazzini even asserted, that the 

 ideas of Burnet were mainly borrowed 

 from a dialogue of one Patrizio ; but 

 Brocchi, after reading that dialogue, 



other correspondence between these sys- 

 tems, except that both were equally 



whimsical. . . 



f Dei Corpi Marini, Lettere critic^, 





assures us, that there was scarcely any &c. 1721. 



