330 PALEONTOLOGY. 



inclined to consider it in both views ; probably great continents have 

 been formed after the first mode, and islands after the second." — 

 P. xlv. 



" I formerly observed that earthquakes very probably raised islands ; 

 that on the surface of such there would be found shells, and in vast 

 quantity, recent, dead, and fossilized. . . . This upraising of the bottom of 

 the sea above the surface of the water, will also raise up along with it 

 all the shell-fish that lay on the surface of the bottom, as also dead 

 shells, and in the substance of the earth all the deeper-seated sub- 

 stances imbedded or enclosed in stone, chalk, clay, <fec, which I have 

 said constitutes the true fossil. This appears to be the state of the 

 case on and in the Island of Ascension ;. the whole surface of this island 

 is covered with shells, and some so perfeet as to have their ligaments 

 still adhering. There is, besides, a vast quantity of lava, and other 

 volcanic matter ; all of which shows it most probably arose in this way, 

 because such recent alteration in the sea, so as to have exposed so much 

 of its bottom, and so recently as to have the animal part of the shell 

 still adhering ; and the very name implies its rise 1 . I suspect that 

 many of those shells found on land near the surface, on the tops of 

 mountains, have been exposed in this way." — P. xlvii. 



Finally, Hunter adverts to the agency of animal life in modifying and 

 adding to the crust of the earth. 



" Although a great part of the calcareous earth is undoubtedly of 

 animal origin, yet the same cannot be said of the whole ; for without 

 relying only on those calcareous mountains and strata which do not 

 exhibit traces of the animal kingdom, and which by some are therefore 

 to be considered of a more ancient date, we find that several of the 

 elements of the granite contain a portion of calcareous earth as a con- 

 stituent principle, schorl, felspar, and even quartz. 



" Now, if we allow the granite to have been formed prior to the 

 animal creation, we must also allow that calcareous earth has not 

 entirely originated from decomposed animal substances, because we find 

 this earth entering into the composition of several elements of the 

 granite. This does not, however, in the least militate against what is 

 mentioned in this part of the paper ; on the contrary, it appears scarcely 

 to be doubted that chalk, (fee, which contains shells and the like, has 

 itself originated from decomposition of similar productions." — P. xliv. 



Quartz consists of silex, and is not considered by the best analytical 

 mineralogists naturally to contain lime : but many of the granitic 



1 [This is very ingenious ; but the superstitious Spaniard had little thought of the 

 geological causes of the island, when he discovered it on the evening of ' Ascension 

 Day.'] 



