36 
regions : such are the metals, stones of the granitic class, and most 
of the various substances, of which the primitive mountains are 
formed. Under the secondary fossils*, I place those sub- 
stances, which bear indisputable testimony, in their structure and 
form, of their having existed in an organized state ; and w’hich are 
therefore known to have had an animal or vegetable origin ; but 
which have (iftevivcirds entered into, and become, subjects of the 
mineral kingdom. 
Secondary fossils, which are alone intended to be the sub- 
jects of our investigation, may, according to their origin, be divided 
into two classes, vegetable or animal fossils. Each class 
will be found also capable of a further division, in orders, genera, 
and species; which classification, although impossible to be made 
correspondent with that of their recent analogues, will still, how- 
ever, yield some advantage in the prosecution of this study. The 
varieties of the species can seldom be expected to be discoverable 
in our specimens ; this term, therefore, may be adopted for those 
varieties dependent on composition ; and which may be distin- 
guished by the epithets, appropriated to the several kinds of matter 
of which they are formed; such as siliceous, calcareous, bitumi- 
nous, &c. Thus, I hope, without adopting any harsh or offensive 
change, all confusion of terms may be avoided, and an intelligible 
mode of expression secured. 
It is proper to observe here, that I shall consider as fossil bodies, 
some substances, which, by writers of considerable authority, ha\e 
been deemed unfit to come under that denomination. The sub- 
stances which I here allude to, are those which, having lost, by the 
decomposing powers of certain subterranean processes, not only all 
the softer parts, but almost the whole of those principles which are 
peculiar to animal or vegetable substances, seem to retain only the 
earth of the bony lamellie, or of the ligneous fibre. These are the 
* Transubstantiata, Linna?i. 
