348 
however, remarkable that with the revival of intellectual ac- 
tivity generally, we have a very decided revival of geological 
inquiry. When Leonardo da Vinci pictured the fossil shells of 
Italian rocks so beautifully, and contended that they had once 
been real shells, there must have been a somewhat deep and 
wide interest awakened in connection with fossil remains, I ms 
was at the close of the fifteenth century. When Fracastoro 
wrote, about the year 1517, on the petrifactions that were 
brought to light at Verona, some degree of fundamental 
geology had found its way into the more intelligent minds 
But it is not till more than a century after that we have much 
of a really scientific character in the form of geological litera- 
ture. Then, it is clear, that true thought on the earth s struc- 
ture had begun to spread widely. There is a rather interesting 
evidence of this in a production from which we have already 
quoted. It is a translation of Steno's work on “ ^^ds con- 
tained in Solids,” which was published in London in 16/1. 
In the address of the "Interpreter” to the reader, he says 
that the treatise “giveth very fair hopes, that by a due weighing 
of the particulars therein laid down, the sagacious inquirers 
into nature may be much assisted to penetrate into the true 
knowledge of one of the great masses of the world, the earth, 
and therein to find out not only the constitution of the whole, 
but also the several changes and the various productions made 
in the parts thereof.” Steno, as we have already indicated, 
was a learned Dane, living, at the time when he wrote this 
treatise, under the Grand Duke of Tuscany, but about to leave 
for his native land. The treatise itself is constructed as a mere 
sketch of a much larger work which had been contemplated. 
It was published as a sort of apology for so full and noble a 
discussion of the deeply interesting theme as might have been 
worthy of the acceptance of the prince. Thought on such 
subjects had ripened to a very great extent before the date ot 
this publication. _ 
We consequently find a very considerable amount oi sound 
and excellent geology in the treatise of Steno. He writes on 
what he calls “ the much controverted question about marine 
bodies found at a great distance from the sea/' and says that 
the question itself ‘ f is ancient, delightful, and of use.' He 
complains that modern writers had rendered the subject more 
difficult and doubtful by departing from the solutions of the 
ancients. He says, “ The ancients were exercised by one only 
difficulty, which was, how marine bodies came to be left m 
places remote from the sea." The discussion in Steno s time 
was as to the origin of these marine bodies some ascribing 
them to the sea, others to the earth— while many held that 
