86 
ORGANIC REMAINS. 
man of enlarged views in geology ought to find the best evidence of 
important truths, and the means of correcting serious errors. For these 
important ends, it is necessary that every known locality in the strata 
should be recorded of every fossil. For want of this precaution, fossils 
have been often stated to be characteristic of a particular rock, when in 
fact they occur in several others ; and thus a crowd of errors has 
been introduced, which have obscured the truths taught by Mr. Smith, 
and given occasion for denying that a comparison of their imbedded 
fossils is useful in identifying and discriminating the strata. Deeply 
impressed with the interest and importance of this subject, I have 
sought the means of placing it in a clear and correct light ; and am not 
without hopes, that whether my views be received or rejected, my state- 
ments will be found unprejudiced, and, though incomplete, correct. 
I shall now endeavour to investigate some of the general laws, re- 
specting the relation of fossils to the strata, which are either already 
recognised and admitted among geologists, or unfolded in the following- 
pages. The inquiry naturally divides itself into two parts, according as 
the strata are considered, with respect to their chemical and mineralogical 
composition, or their relative antiquity. Considering rocks as definite 
chemical compounds, (an assumption sufficiently exact in a limited dis- 
trict,) we may inquire if fossils of the same kind belong to strata of 
the same character. 
A decisive answer in the affirmative will suggest itself to him who 
observes the agreement in this respect, between the transition limestone 
and the mountain limestone, in their bivalve shells and trilobites, between 
this latter rock and the oolites in their astreje, turbinoliaa, and milleporse, 
and between the oolites and the chalk, in some of their echini and terebra- 
tulae. But this analogy vanishes altogether when we attempt to extend 
it to a considerable series of fossils ; no other strata than the limestones 
exhibit it in a striking degree, and few tribes of organic remains can be 
quoted in illustration except the polyparia and radiaria. On the con- 
trary, the shells of the mountain limestone, oolite, and chalk, are all 
