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important views in regard to the different kinds of strata, and 

 their origin, and first placed on record the important fact that 

 the oldest rocks contain no fossils. 



Scilla, the Sicilian painter, published in 1670 a work on the 

 fossils of Calabria, well illustrated. He is very severe against 

 those who doubted the organic origin of fossils, but is inclined 

 to consider them relics of the Mosaic deluge. 



Another instance of the power of the lusus naturw theory, 

 even at the close of the seventeenth century, deserves mention. 

 In the year 1696, the skeleton of a fossil elephant was dug up 

 at Tonna, near Gotha, in Germany, and was described by 

 "William Ernest Tentzel, a teacher in the Gotha Gymnasium. 

 He declared the bones to be the remains of an animal that had 

 lived long before. The Medical Faculty in Gotha, however, 

 considered the subject, and decided officially that this specimen 

 was only a freak of nature. 



Beside the authors I have mentioned, there were many 

 others who wrote about fossil remains before the close of the 

 seventeenth century, and took part in the general discussion as 

 to their nature and origin. During the progress of this con- 

 troversy the most fantastic theories were broached and stoutly 

 defended, and although refuted from time to time by a few 

 clear-headed men, continually sprang up anew, in the same or 

 modified forms. The influence of Aristotle's views of equivo- 

 cal generation, and especially the scholastic tendency to dispu- 

 tation, so prevalent during the middle ages, had contributed 

 largely to the retardation of progress, and yet a real advance 

 in knowledge had been made. The long contest in regard to 

 the nature of fossil remains was essentially over, for the more 

 intelligent opinion at the time now acknowledged that these 

 objects were not mere " sports of nature," but had once been 

 endowed with life. At this point, therefore, the first period 

 in the history of Palaeontology, as I have indicated it, may 

 appropriately end. 



It is true that later still, the old exploded errors about the 

 plastic force and fermentation were from time to time revived, 



