2 8o NATURAL HISTORY 
alfo ’tis reafonable to fuppofe, that by the rapid waters of the flood, 
matter was carried to and fro, and depofited over large grafts of 
land little or nothing charged with marine bodies.” This fcarcity 
may be accounted for by very fatisfactory realons . The diftribution 
of recent marine bodies is, and always has been unequal. Why then 
fhould foflil-bodies of like kind be difperfed with greater equality 
than the recent ? Where there was plenty of teflaceous animals at 
the time of the flood, there, or near by, plenty of foflil-ftiells de- 
pofited in clay and ftone is found ; where there was a fcarcity of 
recent fhell-fifh, there few or none appear inclofed in the folids. 
In fome places, by a variety of concurring circumftances, the fhell- 
fifli were, and are ftill collected and heaped together ; other places 
muft in proportion have been, and ftill are left naked and deftitute. 
Either there was a deficiency of recent fhell-fifh round the fhores 
of Cornwall, or there was not : if there was a deficiency of ftiell- 
fifh round the fhores of Cornwall at the time of tne deluge, then 
it is no wonder that none fhould be found in a foftil ftate \ if there 
was not fuch a deficiency, then fhell-fifh muft have overfpread the 
hills of Cornwall, as well as elfewhere, in proportion to the product 
of the neighbouring fhores ; and the reafon why they do not now 
appear is next to be enquired into ; and may probably be, firft, 
becaufe our w'aters are very fharp and corrofive, fubject to much 
vitriol, as appears by our copper-lodes, in which there is frequently 
found more or lefs of copper diflolved and precipitated by vitriol. 
The waters of tin-lodes and workings are alfo well flocked with 
vitriol. Now waters impregnated with the fharp falts of vitriol, and 
fuch a multitude of minerals and metals as Cornwall abounds with, 
muft fbon have diflolved the ftiells which were depofited here by 
the deluge ; and I am the more inclined to believe that the corro- 
five quality of the Cornifh waters may have confumed thofe tefta- 
ceous exuvice , becaufe in Cornwall we have various evidences of 
the flood, but all of that kind and texture which are proofs againft 
fuch fretting waters. In a cliff four miles north of Bofcaftle, there 
are feveral Jirata of white cryftalline ftones, about four inches dia- 
meter, inferted in horizontal rowes like a lift or chain of Angle 
pebbles fide by fide, Plate xvn. Fig. iv. a a : thefe lifts were 
fixed in the general Jlratwn of this country, which is a brown flat, 
and could be fpread in this manner by no caufe fo likely as the 
general deluge. A little to the fouth, in the fame cliff, I obferved 
veins of different colours, from the top ol the firm rock to the foot 
of the cliff wafhed by the fea, not in a perpendicular but angular 
direction, and yet prcferving a parallelifm one to another in a zig- 
zag manner, as reprefented Plate and Fig. ibid. G W ; a pheno- 
menon plainly intimating the ofcillatory motion with which the 
