A Kin iso. 
RA!.l>A'4ARI. 
itoxini. 
hiANoni. 
•J*_> THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
The ideas of Arduino were less theoretical thau Moro’s ; he divided the Paduan, the 
> a-eutin, and the Veronese mountains into primary, secondary, and tertiary. The 
cmdary mountains are for the most part formed of compact limestone in continuous 
strata, containing petrified organic bodies ; these strata vary in hardness, fineness of 
.’rain, composition, colour, and in the species of marine organisms they contain, since, 
according to the author, there is but one kind in each stratum. 
\\ hilst Dona ; i explored the Adriatic in order to investigate the habitats of living beings, 
Kddiissari made researches on the fossils of the Siennese territory. He recognised, as had 
Marsilli in tin territory of Parma, Spada near Verona, and Schiavo in Sicily, that the 
r mains were not mixed confusedly, but, on the contrary, distributed in families in such 
i manner that in certain spots Area abounded, while in others the comb-shell, Venus, 
M nr. r, &e., were more plentiful, according to the nature of the rock. He noticed the 
regular arrangement of fossils in the various strata, the natural position of the corals, the 
perforation of the rocks by lithophagous shells, but he gave no opinion on the theoretical 
■ i rings of these facts, i.e., whether the sea had been withdrawn suddenly or gradually, 
whether the animal or vegetable productions supposed to belong to the torrid zone had 
been brought thence to the north, or whether the temperature of the country was higher 
thru than it is now. In the great works of Wolfgang Knorr and Walet (1755-1773) 
a distinction is drawn between the pelagic fossils and those found on the sea-coast, and 
they express the opinion that those whose analogues have not been found must exist in 
the deep seas as yet unexplored. 
In Italy during the eighteenth century the microscope was applied to the examination 
of i. orine deposits, and had much influence on the study both of living animals and of 
f '"i! for the sand of the Adriatic, near Rimini, was found to be almost exclusively 
com j (o-i -d of microscopic shells, and the Tertiary marls of the sub-Apennine hills were 
,i!-o found to contain a prodigious quantity of them. Beccari, towards 1729, created a 
new br.i eh of conchology by the discovery of a small kind of polythalamous shell of 
nautiloid shupe (Nautilus Beccarii , Linne). The coils of the helix and its transverse 
divisions give it a great resemblance to the ammonite, a comparison which was long adopted 
for all the other analogous forms so plentiful in the marls of North Italy. 
Ten year* lat< r G. Bianchi, better known by the name of J. Plancus, announced that 
In had found on tin shore at Rimini the living analogue of the small fossil ammonite, 
uni that its dimensions were such that it required 130 of them to equal the weight of a 
grain of wheat. He found a great many other species, which he still classed along with 
In n au' b and ammonites, on account of their internal divisions. His work 2 contributed 
much to ii. n a-e our knowh Ige on this subject, and at a later period he pointed out that, 
1 S • d’Arrhiac, four* <!<■ Pali mtologie Htratiftraphique, tom. i. p. 20, Paris, 1802. 
1 !»■ • 1 i* minim noli* in littore Ariminenxi, Venice, 17311 (cited by d’Arcliioc). 
