66 Epitome of the Progress of JVatural Science. 



great fidelity the animals they were familiar with. Their forms 

 too, are reproduced in a very perfect manner, both in their 

 sculpture and paintings. More than fifty species of animals are 

 represented with such truth, as to be immediately recognized by 

 naturalists. In one painting, representing people fishing, more 

 than twenty species of fish, peculiar to that country, are depict- 

 ed with similar fidelity. Of their physical and metaphysical 

 theories, enough remains to convince us, that they were a most 

 ingenious and philosophical people. One fiction of their mytholo- 

 gy was raised upon the analogy nature presents, in producing 

 organized animals from the egg. This planet was supposed by 

 them to be a mundane egg, brought into life by a metaphysical 

 principle, after the manner of incubation. They believed also 

 in the successive destruction and renovation of the world, and if 

 we are to believe, as we reasonably may, that the Pythagorean 

 doctrines, as we find them sketched in Ovid's metamorphoses, 

 were derived from Egypt, the Egyptians may claim to be con- 

 sidered as having laid the foundation of some of the most impor- 

 tant geological truths, which have been worked out in our own 

 times. In enouncing the following truths, Pythagoras is made, 

 by Ovid, to speak in his own person. 



" Nothing perishes in this world ; things merely vary and 

 change their form. 



" Sea has been changed into land ; marine shells lie far distant 

 from the deep. 



" Valleys have been excavated by running water, and floods 

 have carried the ruins of hills into the sea. 



" Islands have become connected with the main land, by the 

 growth of Deltas, as Pharos to Egypt. 



"Peninsulas have been divided from the main land, and have be- 

 come islands; according to tradition, Sicily has thus been separated. 



" Plains have been upheaved into hills, by the confined air 

 seeking vent, as at Troezen, in the Peloponessus. 



" The temperature of some springs varies at different periods. 



" The waters of others are inflammable. 



" Volcanic vents shift their position ; there was a time when 

 Etna was not a burning mountain, and the time will come when 

 it will cease to burn : whether it be, that some caverns become 

 closed up, by the movements of the earth, and others opened, or 

 whether the fuel is exhausted." 



