CONCHOLOGY. 



viz. the Elephant, the Ceylon and Gangetic Crocodiles, 

 and we suspect the Nautilus Pompilius, a remarkable 

 shell fish (distinguished from all others by its peculiar 

 structure) the Chaitodon Equatoria, and amongst others 

 of the vegetable tribe, the Mournful Tree (a peculiar 

 plant well described by Jussieu) the Banana and the 

 Bamboo. To these may be added the Triplex and Septa 

 tribes of shells, with all the impressions of fern and sub- 

 marine plants, Echini, &c. which in the living state are 

 foreign to our northern regions, and which all Avriters do 

 agree, from analogical reasoning, came from a southern 

 and warmer climate. The Southern seas and the Equa- 

 torial regions are so extensive as to account fully for the 

 immense quantities and varieties of fossil shells, plants, 

 and marine exuira?, which have at various times been 

 discovered. Thus it will be found that the best opinion 

 we can form of the great changes we have observed arises 

 either from the general action of volcanoes, resulting from 

 the chemical changes and decompositions of Nature, or 

 from that great diluvian revolution which was owing to 

 the flood, or perhaps from both united. Nor can we 

 suppose these changes to be produced from any gradual 

 subsidence of the ocean, for if so the effects would be traced 

 in a more gradual analogy and progression, and not in such 

 sudden and opposite extremes. 



The circumstance of Fossil Shells being found in a 

 burnt state, and which is not unfrequent in those specimens 

 which have been found in the mountains of the Tyrol and of 

 Hungary, are a stong proof that volcanoes did exist before 

 that time. Nor is the probability denied by modern philo- 

 sophers, that these eruptions are in general occasioned by a 

 subterraneous communication of the sea, the latter insinuating 

 itself through the cavities and strata of the earth, and 

 meeting with inflammable substances. A general deluge 



