308 PALAEONTOLOGY. 



peat, sand, gravel, clay, or those encrusted, which are most probably 

 the most recent of all. 



" The change in the ecliptic would appear by the fossils and recent of 

 the same species having changed countries respecting warmth ; for the 

 fossils of this and other cold countries are the most recent in the warm ; 

 yet this is not universally the case, for I believe that bones of the 

 elephant are found in all climates. 



" It is very common to find in this co'intry, as also in North America*, 

 bones of elephants which are known by their teeth. It is the same 

 with the sea-horse, as also the amphibia, as the turtle, with many shells of 

 warm climates, &c. ; a thing that most probably would not have hap- 

 pened if a change in the situation of this globe respecting the sun had 

 not taken place." — P. vi. 



This extract brings before us Hunter's views on another great geolo- 

 gical principle, — the alternations of sea and land in the same place. 

 First, let me beg attention to the perspicuity with which Hunter 

 interpreted his evidences of the differences, in regard to the time during 

 which such alternations had taken place ; to his deductions as to the 

 rapidity of the submersion of a tract of dry land, from the perishable 

 nature of the fossils, as for instance, leaves, <fcc, found in such strata ; 

 and next as to the " vast time the sea must have been in some places" 

 in order to allow of the depth of the new precipitated matter. 



Hunter's deductions, that the sea must at some period have overflowed 

 the now dry land, and that there had been alternations of land and 

 sea, though doubtless original with him, and strictly in accordance 

 with his premises, were not new : they are, in the main, the same as 

 those which the excellent comparative anatomist Steno arrived at in 

 1669, from the study of petrif actions in certain strata in Italy. Steno, 

 who had dissected a shark, and had recognized the identity of form and 

 structure between the teeth of that fish and the fossil teeth, advocated 

 the true view as to the nature and origin of organic fossils, which 

 Leonardo da Vinci and Fracastoro had, nearly a century before, main- 

 tained ; but which, under a mistaken and banefvd impression as to the 

 tendency of natural truth, and a dread of it, was in Steno's day rejected. 

 Steno, in his remarkable work entitled " De Solido intra Solidum natu- 

 raliter contento," 1669, declares that he had obtained proof that 

 Tuscany must successively hav° acquired six distinct configurations; 

 having been twice covered by water, twice laid dry with a level, and 

 twice with an irregular and uneven surface. 



* The large tusks found in America do not belong to the animal whose teeth we 

 find. I hare a grinder of an elephant sent me from the same place. 



