simpler way of accounting for the remains of animals in the 

 rocks than the marvelous changes of sea and land otherwise 

 required to explain their presence. Aristotle's opinion was in 

 accordance with the Biblical account of the creation of Man 

 out of the dust of the earth, and hence more readily obtained 

 credence. 



Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, alludes to fossil fishes 

 found near Heraclea, in Pontus, and in Paphlagonia, and says : 

 " They were either developed from fish spawn left behind in 

 the earth, or gone astray from rivers or the sea into cavities of 

 the earth, where they had become petrified." In treating of 

 fossil ivory and bones, the same writer supposed them to be 

 produced by a certain plastic virtue latent in the earth. To 

 this same cause, as we shall see, many later authors attributed 

 the origin of all fossil remains. 



Previous to this, Anaximander, the Miletian philosopher, 

 who was born about 610 years before Christ, had expressed 

 essentially the same view. According to both Plutarch and 

 Censorinus, Anaximander taught that fishes, or animals very 

 like fishes, sprang from heated water and earth, and from these 

 animals came the human race ; a statement which can hardly 

 be considered as anticipating the modern idea of evolution, as 

 some authors have imagined. 



The Romans added but little to ffie knowledge possessed by 

 the Greeks in regard to fossil remains. Pliny (23-79 A. D), 

 however, seems to have examined such objects with interest, 

 and in his renowned work on Natural History gave names 

 to several forms. He doubtless borrowed largely from Theo- 

 phrastus, who wrote about three hundred years before. Among 

 the objects named by Pliny were, " Bucardia, like to an ox's 

 heart ;" " Brontia, resembling the head of a tortoise, supposed 

 to fall in thunder storms ;" " Glossoptra, similar to a human 

 tongue, which does not grow in the earth, but falls from 

 heaven while the moon is eclipsed ;" " the Horn of Amnion, 

 possessing, with a golden color, the figure of a ram's horn ;" 



