Principles of Geology Part 72

[87] Sui Corpi Marini del Feltrino, 1761.

[88] De Novis e Mari Natis Insulis. Raspe was also the editor of the "Philosophical Works of Leibnitz. Amst. et Leipzig, 1765;"

also author of "Ta.s.sie's Gems," and "Baron Munchausen's Travels."

[89] Acta Academiae Electoralis Maguntinae, vol. ii. Erfurt.

[90] This account of Fuchsel is derived from an excellent a.n.a.lysis of his memoirs by M. Keferstein. Journ. de Geologie, tom. ii. Oct. 1830.

[91] Saggio orittografico, &c. 1780, and other Works.

[92] Lett. sui Pesci Fossili di Bolca. Milan, 1793.

[93] This argument of Testa has been strengthened of late years by the discovery that dealers in sh.e.l.ls had long been in the habit of selling Mediterranean species as sh.e.l.ls of more southern and distant lat.i.tudes, for the sake of enhancing their price. It appears, moreover, from several hundred experiments made by that distinguished hydrographer, Capt. Smith, on the water within eight fathoms of the surface, that the temperature of the Mediterranean is on an average 3 of Fahrenheit higher than the western part of the Atlantic ocean; an important fact, which in some degree may help to explain why many species are common to tropical lat.i.tudes and to the Mediterranean.

[94] Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth, 1778.

[95] Observ. on the Formation of Mountains. Act Petrop. ann.

1778, part i.

[96] Nov. comm. Petr. XVII. Cuvier, Eloge de Pallas.

[97] Cuvier, Eloge de Werner.

[98] I am indebted for this information partly to Messrs.

Sedgwick and Murchison, who have investigated the country, and partly to Dr. Charles Hartmann, the translator of this work into German.

[99] Cuvier, Eloge de Desmarest.

[100] Journ. de Phys. vol. xiii. p. 115; and Mem. de l'Inst., Sciences Mathemat. et. Phys. vol. vi. p. 219.

[101] Journ. de Phys. tom. x.x.xv. p. 191.

[102] Ib. tom. x.x.xvii. part ii. p. 200.

[103] Cuvier, Eloge de Desmarest.

[104] Ed. Phil. Trans. 1788.

[105] Playfair's Works, vol. iv. p. 75.

[106] "Before me things create were none, save things Eternal."--Dante's _Inferno_, canto iii. Cary's Translation.

[107] Playfair's Works, vol. iv. p. 55.

[108] In allusion to the theories of Burnet, Woodward, and other physico-theological writers, he declared that they were as fond of changes of scene on the face of the globe, as were the populace at a play. "Every one of them destroys and renovates the earth after his own fas.h.i.+on, as Descartes framed it: for philosophers put themselves without ceremony in the place of G.o.d, and think to create a universe with a word."--Dissertation envoyee a l'Academie de Boulogne, sur les Changemens arrives dans notre Globe. Unfortunately, this and similar ridicule directed against the cosmogonists was too well deserved.

[109] See the chapter on "Des Pierres figures."

[110] In that essay he lays it down, "that all naturalists are now agreed that deposits of sh.e.l.ls in the midst of the continents are monuments of the continued occupation of these districts by the ocean." In another place also, when speaking of the fossil sh.e.l.ls of Touraine, he admits their true origin.

[111] As an instance of his desire to throw doubt indiscriminately on all geological data, we may recall the pa.s.sage where he says, that "the bones of a reindeer and hippopotamus discovered near Etempes did not prove, as some would have it, that Lapland and the Nile were once on a tour from Paris to Orleans, but merely that a lover of curiosities once preserved them in his cabinet."

[112] "Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by which we learn That he who made it, and revealed its date To Moses, was mistaken in its age." The Task, book iii. "The Garden."

[113] P. 577.

[114] P. 59.

[115] Introd. p. 2.

[116] London, 1809.

[117] In a most able article, by Mr. Drinkwater, on the "Life of Galileo," published in the "Library of Useful Knowledge," it is stated that both Galileo's work, and the book of Copernicus, "Nisi corrigatur" (for, with the omission of certain pa.s.sages, it was sanctioned), were still to be seen on the forbidden list of the Index at Rome, in 1828. I was, however, a.s.sured in the same year, by Professor Scarpellini, at Rome, that Pius VII., a pontiff distinguished for his love of science, had procured a repeal of the edicts against Galileo and the Copernican system.

He had a.s.sembled the Congregation; and the late Cardinal Toriozzi, a.s.sessor of the Sacred Office, proposed that they should wipe off this scandal from the church." The repeal was carried, with the dissentient voice of one Dominican only. Long before that time the Newtonian theory had been taught in the Sapienza, and all Catholic universities in Europe (with the exception, I am told, of Salamanca); but it was always required of professors, in deference to the decrees of the church, to use the term _hypothesis_, instead of theory. They now speak of the Copernican _theory_.

[118] Elementary Treatise on Geology. London, 1809. Translated by De la Fite.

[119] See Dr. Fitton's Memoir, before cited, p. 57.

[120] Whewell, British Critic, No. xvii. p. 187, 1831.

[121] Discours sur les Revol. &c.

[122] Niebuhr's Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 5. Hare and Thirlwall's translation.

[123] Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. x.x.xiii.

[124] Id. Ibid.

[125] In the earlier editions of this work, a fourth book was added on Geology Proper, or Systematic Geology, containing an account of the former changes of the animate and inanimate creation, brought to light by an examination of the crust of the earth. This I afterwards (in 1838) expanded into a separate publication called the Elements of Manual Geology, of which a fourth edition appeared December, 1851.

[126] See two articles by the Rev. Dr. Fleming, in the Edinburgh New Phil. Journ. No. xii. p. 277, April, 1829; and No. xv. p. 65, Jan. 1830.

[127] Book iii. chaps. 46, 47, &c.

[128] Macacus pliocenus, Owen, Brit. Foss. Mam. Intr. p. 37, found with the extinct elephant, &c. in the modern freshwater beds at Grays Thurrock (Ess.e.x), in the valley of the Thames.

[129] Geol. Proceedings, No. x.x.xvi. June, 1834.

[130] Phil. Mag., Sept. 1829, and Jan. 1830.

[131] Fleming, Ed. New Phil. Journ., No. xii. p. 282, 1829. The zebra, however, inhabits chiefly the extra-tropical parts of Africa.

[132] Humboldt, Fragmens de Geologie, &c., tome ii. p. 388.

Ehrenberg, Ann. des Sci. Nat., tome xxi. p. 387.

[133] Ehrenberg, ibid. p. 390.

[134] Journ. of Asiat. Soc., vol. i. p. 240.