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CHAPTER II. 



ON PETRIFACTIONS, OR FOSSIL, ANIMAL, AND YEGETABLE REMAINS. 



Opinions of early Naturalists respecting Petrifactions. — On the Process called 

 Petrifaction. — Experiment of Dr. Jenner on the Petrifaction of recent Bones. — 

 Living- Reptiles occasionally found in solid Stone. — Remarkable Difference in 

 the Condition of Fossil Remains in adjacent Strata; Instance of this at West- 

 bury Clitf, Gloucestershire. — The four grand Divisions of the Animal King- 

 dom. — Distribution of the Remains of certain Classes and Orders of Animals in 

 each Division through the different Rock Formations. — Fossil Elephant proved 

 to have been an Inhabitant of cold Climates. — Remains of Monkeys hitherto 

 undiscovered in a Fossil State. — On Vegetable Petrifactions in the Transition, 

 Secondary, and Tertiary Strata, supposed to prove the former high Tempera- 

 ture of the Globe in Northern Latitudes. — Observations on Fossil Organic Re- 

 mains, as serving to identify Strata in distant Countries. 



If it had been predicted a century ago, that a volume would be 

 discovered, containing the natural history of the earliest inhabitants 

 of the globe, who flourished and perished before the creation of man, 

 with distinct impressions of the forms of genera of animals no longer 

 existing on the earth. — what curiosity would have been excited to 

 see this wonderful volume ; how anxiously would Philosophers have 

 waited for the discovery ! But this volume is now discovered; it is 

 the Volume of Nature, rich with the spoils of primeval ages, unfold- 

 ed to the view of the attentive observer, in the strata that compose 

 the crust of the globe. The numerous and varied forms of organic 

 beings, whose remains are there distinctly preserved, sometimes dif- 

 fer so much in structure from any known genera of animals, that we 

 can scarcely hazard any probable conjectures respecting their modes 

 of existence. Nor do we discover merely the forms of unknown an- 

 imals in the different strata, we also learn the order of succession in 

 which they first appeared on the globe. 



It is only within a comparatively short period, that these fossil or- 

 ganic remains have engaged the attention of naturalists. It is true 

 that in remote times, the occasional discovery of shells and bones of 

 large animals imbedded in rocks, did not escape the attention of phi- 

 losophers ; but, the shells were supposed to belong to species now 

 living, and the bones to a gigantic race of men, that perished during 

 some great inundation, or had been buried by earthquakes. Other 

 hypotheses, equally remote from truth, serve to show how little at- 

 tention had been bestowed on this department of Natural History. 

 The celebrated botanist, Tournefort, from the regularity of form in 

 many fossil remains, was induced to believe that they were stones 

 that grew and vegetated from seeds. " How could the Cornu Am- 

 monis^^^ he observes, " which is constantly in the figure of a volute, 

 be formed without a seed containing the same structure in the small, 



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