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I.VTKODL’CTIO.V.

of the trees, and calls himself lord and proprietor of this newcreation.” vol. iii. pp. 331-3.

§ 13. Having thus brought to a conclusion our survey of thephoenomeua which it forms the object of Geology to investigate,we subjoin a rapid sketch of the progress of that science espe-cially in our own country.

In the limited number of physical subjects which attractedthe attention of classical antiquity, we can only venture to in-clude a few insulated phcenomena from among those which fallwithin the province of Geology. Such striking natural appear-ances as earthquakes and volcanos could not indeed entirelyescape notice, and we occasionally find crude theories proposedto account for their causes:* the formation of new lands bythe alluvium of rivers, + the birth of new islands, J and the en-croachment of the sea on the land, || are also topics often handledby them which at least border on Geology. With the greatand leading fact of geological speculation, the occurrence of thespoils of marine animals imbedded in the solid strata of thecontinents, they were acquainted,§ but it seems not to have ex-cited much interest or curiosity ; and it is singular that whenadducing other arguments to prove the favorite tenet of someof their schools, that the face of nature was undergoing a per-petual change, so that what was then land had once been sea,this, w hich amounted to occular proof, is very often overlooked..).

* Pliny. Hist. Nat. lib. 2. 81 ad 86. Aristotle, Meteorologica . lib. 2,14,15, 16. Lucretius , lib. 6. Seneca, Nat. quaest. a cap. 4. Plutarch dePlacitis, Philos, lib. 3.

+ Pliny, lib. 2. 87. Aristotle. Meteor, lib. 1.14. Herodotus , lib. 2. ininitio Polvbius gives an interesting account of the increase of alluvialdeposits in the l'alus Moeotis (lib. 4). Strabo mentions the vulcanic for-mation of a new mountain of enormous height in the neighbourhood ofMethone. (Ed. Ab. tom. 1. p. 102.)

1 Pliny, lib. 2. 88. 89.

I Pliny, lib. 2. 90. 92. 94,

5 Pausanias (Attica) describes a quarrv of shell limestone, AI0OEKOrXITHE, at Megara as a solitary eiample of this kind of stone in

Cireecejhe observes that it was soft, white, and quite full of shells.

Xenophon , in the Anabasis, more than once mentions temples and otherbuildings constructed of a similar stone. The professed writers on minerals,however, scarcely allude to the subject. Theophrastus mentions an ostra-cites, but iu such a manner that it is not clear whether he meant an organicremain or not. Pliny only says of a fossil of the same name that it had thefigure of a shell; and though he describes under various fanciful names,•what appear to have been Belemnites, Ammonites, Echinites, Encrinites,Corallites, and casts of Cardia, &c. does not betray any suspicion of theirtrue origin. The same writers mention the occurrence of fossil hones andivory equally without remark.

+ The arguments which Aristotle brings in support of this are deducedfrom a fanciful notion that the Earth was partially subject to a change like