2o8 NICOLAUS STENO 



the detailed description of the muscles; and now, when I am 

 wholly devoted to my present experiments, he whose command 

 the law of nature bids me heed, and whose great kindness toward 

 me and mine constrains me, calls me to other things.^ 



To what end all these matters may come, I do not care to 

 inquire anxiously, lest it be, peradventure, to accredit to myself 

 things which are due to a higher cause. If long contemplation 

 had added something of my own, as it were, to discoveries not 

 my own, certainly if I had tarried longer in working out one 

 discovery, I should myself have shut the door to the finding of 

 the rest. And so, not knowing what other experiments and 

 P. 5. studies may await me elsewhere, I thought it best to set forth 

 here these matters concertiing a solid naturally contained wtthm 

 a solid, which shall be a pledge to you of gratitude for the favors 

 I have received and shall afford to others, who are enjoying their 

 desired leisure, an opportunity of pursuing their studies of 

 physics and geography with greater profit. 



As regards the production of a solid naturally contained 

 within a solid, I shall first sketch briefly the method of my 

 Dissertation, then explain concisely the more noteworthy mat- 

 ters which appear in it. 



The Dissertation itself I had divided into four parts, of which 

 the first, taking the place of an introduction, shows that the 

 inquiry concerning sea objects found at a distance from the sea, 

 is old, delightful, and useful ; but that its true solution, less 

 doubtful in the earliest times, in the ages immediately following 

 was rendered exceedingly uncertain. Then after setting forth 

 the reasons why later thinkers abandoned the belief of the 

 ancients, and why, although one may read a great many ex- 

 cellent works by many authors, the question at issue has 

 hitherto been settled by no one anew,^ I show, returning at 



^Steno refers to the invitation of Frederik III; cf. p. i8i. He got no fartlier than 

 Amsterdam, however. See p. 182. 



^ There is an interesting discussion on the nature and origin of fossil shells in Bernard 

 Palissy's Des Pierres {Discours Admirables, etc., Bvo, Paris, 1580). Referring to Palissy, 

 Fontenelle (^Histoire de l^Acadhnie des Sciences, Annde 1720, p. 5) remarks: " Un potier de 

 terre, qui ne savait ni latin ni grec, fut le premier qui, vers la fin du XVI* sifecle, osa dire dans 

 Paris, et \ la face de tous les docteurs, que les coquilles fossiles ^taient de veritable coquilles 

 d^posdes autrefois par la mer dans les lieux ou elles se trouvaient alors, que des animaux, et 

 surtout des poissons, avaient donnd aux pierres figurdes toutes leurs difFi^rentes figures ; et il 



