390 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. 



eration. The end was then, as now with modern science, the ascertain- 

 ment of truth, but the lesson had not yet been learned that to this end 

 the accumulation and investigation of facts is the first and principal 

 requisite. 



The mystic views of Avicenna, Albertus, Bauhin, Matthiolus, and 

 Libavius, already referred to, prevailed in varying forms throughout 

 the seventeenth century. Sperling^'' (1657) advocated a stone-making 

 spirit, or aura seminalis. Kircher^^ (1665) propounded his theory of 

 seminaria ot corpuscula salina as the true princii)le of petrifaction, and 

 as really constituting the vis lapidifica or spiritus architectonictis which 

 controls the action of the succus petrificus, or petrifying juice, in which 

 he was followed more or less closely by Lachmand'"' (1669), Plot*^' (1677), 

 Ehin"" (1632), andLhwyd^'' (1699), while others considered fossils as 

 mere freaks of nature. Indeed, Camerarius™ (1712) declared that in 

 the beginning God had supplied these varied forms to the earth's inte- 

 rior the same as grass and herbage to its surface. This class of ideas, 

 however, could with difficulty withstand the light of the accumulating 

 facts after the commencement of the eighteenth century, and Lange's^' 

 attempt (1708) to demonstrate the germ theory proved one of the latest 

 efforts of the kind. A modified Democritism, however, cropped out 

 later, as seen in Dr. Arnold's (1733) investigation of the origin and 

 formation of fossils, in which he postulated the existence of infinitesi- 

 mal particles which were brought together in the creation of the world 

 to form the outline of all the creatures and objects upon and within the 

 earth, a work which found some favor on the continent and was trans- 

 lated into German in 1733." 



The theory which was destined to supplant these vague, unreal spec- 

 ulations and to prevail throughout the eighteenth century was what 

 may be called the flood theory, viz., the idea that all or nearly all fos- 

 sils consist of the d6bris of the life of the globe prior to the occurrence 

 of the IsToachian deluge, having been tossed and washed about in that 

 great disturbance and then left stranded on or near the surface in the 

 places where they now occur after the waters had retreated. This view 

 may seem to us a poor substitute even for the worthless dreams which 



"John Sperling. Lithologia, quam sub praeside viri, etc., examini submittit G. 

 E. WieganduB. Viteb., 1657. 



''sAtlianasius Kircherus. Muudue subterraneus, Tom. II, Lib. VIII, Sect. I, Cap. 

 Ill ; Sect. II, Cap. I. Amsterdam, 1665. 



66Friedericli Lachmund. Oryctographia Hildesheimensis. Hildesheim, 1669. 



'"Eobert Plot. Natural History of Oxfordshire, pp. 32, 33, 122, 124. Oxford, 1677. 



""Lucas Rhin. Dissertatio de ebore fosslli. Altdorf, 1682. 



"9 Edward Lhwyd. Loo. cit 



'"Elias Camerarius. Dissertationes taurinenses physioo-medicaj, Franof., 1712. 



"Carolus Nicolaus Langius. Historia lapidium 'figuratorum Helvetia n 16") 

 Venetiis, 1708. 4°. > l ■ • 



'^Theodore Arnold. Eine Untersuchung des Ursprungs und der Formirung derer 

 Fossilieu. Leipzig, 1733. 8°. I know this paper only from «, mention of it by 

 Sohultze in his " Krauterabdriioke im Steinreiohe " S. 10. 



