134 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS 



round Canterbury, 1743), Guettard (northern France, 

 1751), Fiichsel (Thuringia, 1762) and especially Guet- 

 tard and Monnet, Atlas descriptif et min^ralogique 

 de la France (Fol. Paris, 1780).^ 



The Nature of Fossils 

 Like some other Cambridge naturalistSi^ Lister specu- 

 lated freely concerning the nature of fossils. He doubts 

 whether what he calls " cochlites," (fossil shells) had 

 ever formed part of living animals, because (l) some 

 of them exceed in size all shells found in our seas. 

 (2) They occur just as much in inland as in maritime 

 places. (3) They are formed of mere stony substance. 

 (4) They are often imperfect. He adds that some had 

 conjectured that the living animals of such cochlites 

 may some day be found at great depths in the sea.^ 



' Geikie, Founders of Geology, 2nd ed. , pp. 449-55, etc. 



''Cudworth's Intellectual Si/stem (1678) expounds a theory of the origin of 

 fossils which strikes us as amazing when we reflect that it was put forth in 

 the life-time of Newton, Leibnitz and Boyle. 



^ Hist. Anim. Angl. 



