THE PRODROMUS 259 



midst of the forum a stone packed full of striated shells ; hence 

 it is certain that the shells found to-day in the stones had 

 already been formed at the time when the walls of Volterra 

 were being built. 



And in order that no one may say that the shells only have 

 turned into stone, or that having been enclosed within the 

 stone they have suffered no destruction from the tooth of time, 

 we may remark that the whole hill upon which the most an- 

 cient of Etruscan cities is built, rises from the deposits of the 

 sea, placed one above the other, and parallel to the horizon ; 

 and in these deposits many strata, not of stone, abound in 

 p. 64. moUusks that are real and have suffered no change at all ; so 

 it is possible to afifirm that the unchanged shells which we 

 dig from them to-day were formed three thousand and more 

 years ago. From the founding of Rome to our own times, we 

 reckon two thousand four hundred and twenty years and more ; 

 who will not grant that many ages elapsed from the time the 

 first men transferred their homes to Volterra until it grew to 

 the flourishing size it possessed at the time of the founding of 

 Rome ? And if to these centuries we add the time which inter- 

 vened between the first sedimentary deposit of the hill of 

 Volterra, and the time when that same hill was left by the sea 

 and strangers flocked to it, we shall easily go back to the very 

 times of the universal deluge. 



The same authority of history forbids our doubting that those 

 exceedingly large bones which are dug from the fields of Arezzo, 

 have withstood the ravage of nineteen hundred years ; for it is 

 certain : 



1. That the skulls of the pack-animals which are found there 

 do not belong to animals of this climate, as neither do the huge 

 femurs, and very long scapulae, which* are found in the same 

 place. 



2. It is certain that Hannibal crossed thither before he 

 fought with the Romans at the Trasumene Lake. 



3. It is certain that there were in his army African pack- 

 animals and turret-bearing elephants of huge size. 



4. It is certain that while he was coming down from the 

 p. 65. mountains of Fiesole a large part of the animals kept for carry- 



