1 Essays on the Philosophy of the Hindoos.

2 Institutes of Hindoo Law, or the Ordinances of Menù, from the Sanscrit, translated by Sir William Jones, 1796.

3 Menù, Inst. c. i. 66, and 67.

4 Herodot. Euterpe, 12.

5 A Persian MS. copy of the historian Ferishta, in the library of the East India Company, relating to the rise and progress of the Mahomedan empire in India, was procured by Colonel Briggs from the library of Tippoo Sultan in 1799; which has been referred to at some length by Dr. Buckland. (Geol. Trans. 2d Series, vol. ii. part iii. p. 389.)

6 See Davis on "The Chinese," published by the Soc. for the Diffus. of Use. Know. vol. i. pp. 137, 147.

7 Humboldt et Bonpland, Voy. Relat. Hist. vol. i. p. 30.

8 Prichard's Egypt. Mythol. p. 177.

9 Plut. de Defectu Oraculorum, cap. 12. Censorinus de Die Natali. See also Prichard's Egypt. Mythol. p. 182.

10 Prichard's Egypt. Mythol. p. 182.

11 Prichard's Egypt. Mythol. p. 193.

12 Plato's Timæus.

13 Ovid's Metamor. lib. 15.

14 Eluvie mons est deductus in æquor, v. 267. The meaning of this last verse is somewhat obscure; but, taken with the context, may be supposed to allude to the abrading power of floods, torrents, and rivers.

15 The impregnation from new mineral springs, caused by earthquakes in volcanic countries, is perhaps here alluded to.

16 That is probably an allusion to the escape of inflammable gas, like that in the district of Baku, west of the Caspian; at Pietramala, in the Tuscan Apennines; and several other places.

17 Many of those described seem fanciful fictions, like the virtue still so commonly attributed to mineral waters.

18 Raspe, in a learned and judicious essay (De Novis Insulis, cap. 19), has made it appear extremely probable that all the traditions of certain islands in the Mediterranean having at some former time frequently shifted their positions, and at length become stationary, originated in the great change produced in their form by earthquakes and submarine eruptions, of which there have been modern examples in the new islands raised in the time of history. When the series of convulsions ended, the island was said to become fixed.

19 It is not inconsistent with the Hindoo mythology to suppose that Pythagoras might have found in the East not only the system of universal and violent catastrophes and periods of repose in endless succession, but also that of periodical revolutions, effected by the continued agency of ordinary causes. For Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the first, second, and third persons of the Hindoo triad, severally represented the Creative, the Preserving, and the Destroying powers of the Deity. The coexistence of these three attributes, all in simultaneous operation, might well accord with the notion of perpetual but partial alterations finally bringing about a complete change. But the fiction expressed in the verses before quoted from Menù of eternal vicissitudes in the vigils and slumbers of Brahma seems accommodated to the system of great general catastrophes followed by new creations and periods of repose.

20 Meteor. lib. i. cap. 12.

21 De Die Nat.

22 Lib. ii. cap. 14, 15, and 16.

23 Lib. ii. cap. 14, 15, and 16.

24 Omne ex integro animal generabitur, dabiturque terris homo inscius scelerum.—Quæst. Nat. iii. c. 29.

25 This author was Regius Professor of Syriac and Arabic at Paris, where, in 1685, he published a Latin translation of many Arabian MSS. on different departments of philosophy. This work has always been considered of high authority.

26 Gerbanitæ docebant singulos triginta sex mille annos quadringentos, viginti quinque bina ex singulis animalium speciebus produci, marem scilicet ac feminam ex quibus animalia propagantur, huncque inferiorem incolunt orbem. Absoluta autem cœlestium orbium circulatione, quæ illo annorum conficitur spatio, iterum alia producuntur animalium genera et species, quemadmodum et plantarum aliarumque rerum, et primus destruitur ordo, sicque in infinitum producitur.—Histor. Orient Suppl. per Abrahamum Ecchellensem, Syrum Maronitam, cap. 7. et 8. ad calcem Chronici Orientali. Parisiis, e Typ. Regia. 1685, fol.

I have given the punctuation as in the Paris edition, there being no comma after quinque; but, at the suggestion of M. de Schlegel, I have referred the number twenty-five to the period of years, and not to the number of pairs of each species created at one time, as I had done in the two first editions. Fortis inferred that twenty-five new species only were created at a time; a construction which the passage will not admit. Mém. sur l'Hist. Nat. de l'Italie, vol. i. p. 202.

27 "Quod enim hoc attollitur aut subsidit, et vel inundat quædam loca, vel ab iis recedit, ejus rei causa non est, quod alia aliis sola humiliora sint aut altiora; sed quod idem solum modò attollitur modò deprimitur, simulque etiam modò attollitur modò deprimitur, mare: itaque vel exundat vel in suum redit locum."

Posteà, p. 88. "Restat, ut causam adscribamus solo, sive quod mari subest sive quod inundatur; potiùs tamen ei quod mari subest. Hoc enim multò est mobilius, et quod ob humiditatem celeriùs multari possit."—Strabo, Geog. Edit. Almelov. Amst. 1707, lib. 1.

28 Volcanic eruptions, eruptiones flatuum, in the Latin translations, and in the original Greek, αναφυσηματα, gaseous eruptions? or inflations of land?—Ibid. p. 93.

29 Strabo, lib. vi. p. 396.

30 Book iv.

31 L. vi. ch. xiii.

32 Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. ii. chap. iv. section iii.

33 Montes quandóque fiunt ex causa essentiali, quandóque ex causa accidentali. Ex essentiali causa, ut ex vehementi motu terræ elevatur terra, et fit mons. Accidentali, &c.—De Congelatione Lapidum, ed. Gedani, 1682.

34 Von Hoff, Geschichte der Veränderungen der Erdoberfläche, vol. i. p. 406, who cites Delisle, bey Hismann Welt- und Völkergeschichte. Alte Geschichte 1^ter theil, s. 234.—The Arabian persecutions for heretical dogmas in theology were often very sanguinary. In the same ages wherein learning was most in esteem, the Mahometans were divided into two sects, one of whom maintained that the Koran was increate, and had subsisted in the very essence of God from all eternity; and the other, the Motazalites, who, admitting that the Koran was instituted by God, conceived it to have been first made when revealed to the Prophet at Mecca, and accused their opponents of believing in two eternal beings. The opinions of each of these sects were taken up by different caliphs in succession, and the followers of each sometimes submitted to be beheaded, or flogged till at the point of death, rather than renounce their creed.—Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. ii. ch. iv.

35 Koran, chap. xli.

36 Sale's Koran, chap. xi. see note.

37 Ibid.

38 Kossa, appointed master to the Caliph Al Mamûd, was author of a book entitled "The history of the Patriarchs and Prophets, from the Creation of the World."—Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. ii. ch. iv.

39 Translated by MM. Chezy and De Sacy, and cited by M. Elie de Beaumont, Ann. des Sci. Nat. 1832.

40 See Venturi's extracts from Da Vinci's MMS. now in Library of Institute of France. They are not mentioned by Brocchi, and my attention was first called to them by Mr. Hallam. L. da Vinci died A. D. 1519.

41 Museum Calceol.—See Brocchi's Discourse on the Progress of the Study of Fossil Conchology in Italy, where some of the following notices on Italian writers will be found more at large.

42 In Sicily, in particular, the title-deeds of many valuable grants of land to the monasteries are headed by such preambles, composed by the testators about the period when the good King Roger was expelling the Saracens from that island.

43 De Fossilib. pp. 109, 176.

44 Aristotle, On Animals, chaps. 1, 15.

45 Brocchi, Con. Fos. Subap. Disc. sui Progressi. vol. i. p. 57.

46 De Metallicis.

47 Dies Caniculares.

48 Storia Naturale.

49 Osserv. sugli Animali aquat. e terrest. 1626.

50 Sex itaque distinctas Etruriæ facies agnoscimus, dum bis fluida, bis plana, et sicca, bis aspera fuerit, &c.

51 Scilla quotes the remark of Cicero on the story that a stone in Chios had been cleft open, and presented the head of Paniscus in relief:—"I believe," said the orator, "that the figure bore some resemblance to Paniscus, but not such that you would have deemed it sculptured by Scopas; for chance never perfectly imitates the truth."

52 De Testaceis fossilibus Mus. Septaliani.

53 The opinions of Boyle, alluded to by Quirini, were published a few years before, in a short article entitled "On the Bottom of the Sea." From observations collected from the divers of the pearl fishery, Boyle inferred that, when the waves were six or seven feet high above the surface of the water, there were no signs of agitation at the depth of fifteen fathoms; and that even during heavy gales of wind, the motion of the water was exceedingly diminished at the depth of twelve or fifteen feet. He had also learnt from some of his informants, that there were currents running in opposite directions at different depths.—Boyle's Works, vol. iii. p. 110. London, 1744.

54 See Conybeare and Phillips, "Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales," p. 12.

55 Unde jam duplex origo intelligitur primorum corporum, una, cum ab ignis fusione refrigescerent, altera, cum reconcrescerent ex solutione aquarum.

56 Redeunte mox simili causâ strata subinde alia aliis imponerentur, et facies teneri adhuc orbis sæpius novata est. Donec quiescentibus causis, atque æquilibratis, consistentior emergeret rerum status.—For an able analysis of the views of Leibnitz, in his Protogœa, see Mr. Conybeare's Report to the Brit. Assoc. on the Progress of Geological Science, 1832.

57 Between the year 1688 and his death, in 1703, he read several memoirs to the Royal Society, and delivered lectures on various subjects, relating to fossil remains and the effects of earthquakes.

58 Posth. Works, Lecture, Feb. 29, 1688.

59 Posth. Works, p. 327.

60 Posth. Works, Lecture, Feb. 15, 1688. Hooke explained with considerable clearness the different modes wherein organic substances may become lapidified; and, among other illustrations, he mentions some silicified palm-wood brought from Africa, on which M. de la Hire had read a memoir to the Royal Academy of France (June, 1692), wherein he had pointed out, not only the tubes running the length of the trunk, but the roots at one extremity. De la Hire, says Hooke, also treated of certain trees found petrified in the "river that passes by Bakan, in the kingdom of Ava, and which has for the space of ten leagues the virtue of petrifying wood." It is an interesting fact that the silicified wood of the Irawadi should have attracted attention more than one hundred years ago. Remarkable discoveries have been made there in later times of fossil animals and vegetables, by Mr. Crawfurd and Dr. Wallich.—See Geol. Trans. vol. ii. part iii. p. 377, second series. De la Hire cites Father Duchatz, in the second volume of "Observations made in the Indies by the Jesuits."

61 Posth. Works, Lecture, May 29, 1689.

62 Posth. Works, p. 312.

63 Posth. Works, p. 410.

64 Ray's Physico-theological Discourses were of somewhat later date than Hooke's great work on earthquakes. He speaks of Hooke as one "whom for his learning and deep insight into the mysteries of nature he deservedly honored."—On the Deluge, chap. iv.

65 Essay towards a Natural History of the Earth, 1695. Preface.

66 Ibid.

67 Consequences of the Deluge, p. 165.

68 First published in Latin between the years 1680 and 1690.

69 An Examination of Dr. Burnet's Theory, &c., 2d ed. 1734.

70 Ramazzini even asserted, that the ideas of Burnet were mainly borrowed from a dialogue of one Patrizio; but Brocchi, after reading that dialogue, assures us that there was scarcely any other correspondence between these systems, except that both were equally whimsical.

71 Dei Corpi Marini, Lettere critiche, &c. 1721.

72 Brocchi, p. 28.

73 Ibid. p. 33.

74 Ibid.

75 Sui Crostacei ed altri Corpi Marini che si trovano sui Monti.

76 Moro does not cite the works of Hooke and Ray; and although so many of his views were in accordance with theirs, he was probably ignorant of their wrItings, for they had not been translated. As he always refers to the Latin edition of Burnet, and a French translation of Woodward, we may presume that he did not read English.

77 Saggio fisico intorno alla Storia del Mare, part i. p. 24.

78 "Abbomino al sommo qualsivoglia sistema, che sia di pianta fabbricato in aria; massime quando è tale, che non possa sostenersi senza un miracolo," &c.—De' Crostacei e di altre Produz. del Mare, &c. 1749.

79 "Senza violenze, senza finzioni, senza supposti, senza miracoli." De' Crostacei e di altre Produz. del Mare, &c. 1749.

80 Sui Testacei della Sicilia.

81 Hist. Nat. tom. v. éd. de l'Imp. Royale, Paris, 1769.

82 Essai d'une Hist. Nat. des Couches de la Terre, 1759.

83 John Gesner published at Leyden, in Latin.

84 Part ii. chap. 9.

85 Giornale del Criselini, 1759.

86 See a sketch of the History of English Geology, by Dr. Fitton, in Edinb. Rev. Feb. 1818, re-edited Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag. vols. i. and ii. 1832-3. Some of Michell's observations anticipate in so remarkable a manner the theories established forty years afterwards, that his writings would probably have formed an era in the science, if his researches had been uninterrupted. He held, however, his professorship only eight years, when his career was suddenly cut short by preferment to a benefice. From that time he appears to have been engaged in his clerical duties, and to have entirely discontinued his scientific pursuits, exemplifying the working of a system still in force at Oxford and Cambridge, where the chairs of mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, botany, astronomy, geology, mineralogy, and others, being frequently filled by clergymen, the reward of success disqualifies them, if they conscientiously discharge their new duties, from farther advancing the cause of science, and that, too, at the moment when their labors would naturally bear the richest fruits.

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 "Tassie's Gems," and "Baron Munchausen's Travels."

89 Acta Academiæ Electoralis Maguntinæ, vol. ii. Erfurt.

90 This account of Fuchsel is derived from an excellent analysis of his memoirs by M. Keferstein. Journ. de Géologie, 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 shells had long been in the habit of selling Mediterranean species as shells of more southern and distant latitudes, 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 3½° 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 latitudes 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 Mém. de l'Inst., Sciences Mathémat. et Phys. vol. vi. p. 219.

101 Journ. de Phys. tom. xxxv. p. 191.

102 Ib. tom. xxxvii. 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 fashion, as Descartes framed it: for philosophers put themselves without ceremony in the place of God, and think to create a universe with a word."—Dissertation envoyée a l'Academie de Boulogne, sur les Changemens arrivés dans notre Globe. Unfortunately, this and similar ridicule directed against the cosmogonists was too well deserved.

109 See the chapter on "Des Pierres figurés."

110 In that essay he lays it down, "that all naturalists are now agreed that deposits of shells 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 shells 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 passage 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

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 passages, it was sanctioned), were still to be seen on the forbidden list of the Index at Rome, in 1828. I was, however, assured 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 assembled the Congregation; and the late Cardinal Toriozzi, assessor 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 Révol. &c.

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

123 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xxxiii.

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.