hunter's published paper on fossils. 293 



a second memoir, summing up the conclusions which he had deduced from 

 his study of ' Extraneous Fossils ' in general. Part of this memoir Mr. 

 Clift wrote out under the dictation of Hunter 1 , chiefly from separate sheets 

 or slips of paper, on which Hunter had doubtless, from time to time, 

 noted down the observations he had made and the ideas as they arose 

 in his mind, out of those observations. This constructive intellectual work 

 was performed in the evening, Hunter having previously taken his usual 

 hour's sleep after dinner — a sacred hour, in which he was only to be 

 disturbed in matters of the utmost emergency. Thus refreshed, the 

 philosopher returned to his study, and passed the hours from eight o'clock 

 to midnight in the business of writing or dictation. The penning of 

 the paper ' On Extraneous Fossils and their relations,' was one of the 

 first of Mr. Gift's evening-labours after he joined Mr. Hunter's house- 

 hold. This manuscript completed, Hunter took it, corrected it ; and, as 

 Mr. Clift believed, communicated it to the Royal Society 2 . 



What followed thereupon Mr. Clift subsequently heard from Sir 

 Everard Home. The attention of the Secretaries or Council of the 

 Royal Society had been called, by some of the Fellows, to the expres- 

 sions in the first paper, on the " thousands of years " required for such 

 and such geological phenomena ; and, in the second memoir, the Secre- 

 taries found that a chronology of the earth, widely different from the 

 usually accepted one, was more directly and emphatically affirmed by 

 the author, as essential to the rational comprehension of the phenomena 

 he treated of, while, at the same time, the adequacy of the chief or sole 

 geological dynamic, at that time recognized, viz. the Mosaic Deluge, to 

 account for the presence of marine fossils on land was called in ques- 

 tion. Considerations for the repute and interests of the author himself 

 may have swayed his advisers in the recommendation to him to submit 

 the MS. to a geological friend, before finally sending it in for formal 

 acceptance and perusal before the Society. Major Rennell, author of 

 some papers in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' on ' Tides and Cur- 

 rents,' and other geographical subjects, undertook the delicate task of 

 submitting to Hunter the misgivings of the authorities mainly respon- 

 sible for the publications of the Royal Society. He did it in these 

 words : " This leads me to remark that, in page 3, you have used 

 the term ' many thousand centuries,' which brings us almost to the 

 yogues of the Hindoos. Now, although I have no quarrel with any 



1 [It is not probable that the other amanuensis was Mr. William Bell, as is 

 affirmed in the preface to the 4th ed. of this MS., recently published by the Royal 

 College of Surgeons : he went to Sumatra in 1789,. and died there in 1792.] 



2 [I find no record of its formal presentation to the Society, in the Minutes of 

 Council of that period (1793-94).] 



