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Show 28 STENO. attests the -priority of the Italian school in geological research; exemplifying at the same time the powerful obstacles opposed, in that age, to the general reception of e~larged vie~s in t~e science. Steno had compared the fossil shells with their recent analogues, and traced the various gradations from the state of mere calcination, when their natural gluten only was lost, to the perfect substitution of stony matter. He demonstrated that many fossil teeth found in Tuscany belonged to a species of shark; and he dissected, for the purpose of comparison, one of these fish recently taken from the Mediterranean. That the remains of shells and marine animals found petrified were not of animal origin was still a favourite dogma of many who were unwilling to believe, that the earth could have been inhabited by living beings, long before many of the mountains were formed. By way of compromise, as it were, for dissenting from this opinion, Steno conceded, as Fabio Colonna had done before him, that all marine fossils might have been transported into their present situation at the time of the Noachian deluge. He maintained that fossil vegetables had been once living plants, and he hinted that they might, in some instances, indicate the distinction between fluviatile and marine deposits. He also inferred that the present mountains had not existed ever since the origin of things, suggesting that many strata of submarine origin had been accumulated in the interval between the creation and deluge. Here he displayed his great anxiety to reconcile his theory with the Scriptures; for he at the same time advanced an opinion, which does not_ seem very consistent with such a doctrine, viz. that there was a wide distinction between the shelly, and nearly horizontal beds at the foot of the Apennines, and the older mountains of highly inclined stratification. Both, he observed, were of sedimentary origin; and a considerable interval of time must have separated their formation. Tuscany, according to him, had successively past through six different .Ytates ; and to explain these mighty changes, he called in the agency of inundations, earthquakes, and subterranean fires. His generalizations were for the most part comprehensive and just; but such was his awe of popular prejudice, that he only ve:p.t\lred tp throw them out as mere conjectures, and the SCILLA-DlLUVIAL THEORY, 29 timid reserve of his expressions must have raised doubts as to his own confidence in his opinions, and deprived them of some of the authority due to them. s.cilla, a Sicilian painter, published, in 1670, a work on the fos~1ls o~ Cala~ria, ~llustrated by good engravings. This was wntten ~n Latm, with great spirit and elegance, and it proves the contmued ascendancy of do(J'mas often refuted · for we find h . 0 ' t e wit and eloquence of the author chiefly directed a(J'ainst the obs~inate incredulity of naturalists, as to the organic ~ature of fossil shells'X<. Like many eminent_naturalists of his day, Scilla gave way to the popular persuasion that all fossil shells were the effects and proofs of the Mosaic deluge. It may be doubted whether he was perfectly sincere, and some of his contemporaries who took the same course were certainly not so. But so eager we~e t~1ey to roo.t out what they justly considered an absurd preJudice respectmg the nature of organized fossils, that they seem to have been ready to make any concessions in order to establish t~is preli~inar.y point. Such a compro~ising policy was short-sighted, smce It was to little purpose that the nature of. the documents should at length be correctly understood, if men wet·e to be prevented from deducing fair conclusions from them. The theologians who now entered the :field in Italy, Germany, France and England, were innumerable; and hencefor~ ard, they. who refused to subscribe to the position, that all marme orgamc rema~ns wer: proofs. of ~he Mosaic deluge, were exposed ~~ the ImputatiOn of d1sbeheving the whole of the sacred wrltmgs. Scarcely any step had been mad · • • c e In approximatmg to sound theories since the time of Fracastoro more than a hundred years having been lost, in writin(J' dow~ the dogma that organized fossils were mere sports of ~ature An additional per~od of a century and a half was now destined to ~e consumed m exploding the hypothesis, that or(J'anized fossils had aU b.een buried in the solid strata, by the N~achian flood. Never d1d a theoretical fallacy, in any branch of science, * Scilla quotes the remark of Cicero on the story that ~stone in Chios had been cleft open, and presented the head of Paniscus in relief-" I believe " said the orator, "that tho figure bore some resemblance to Paniscus but not su~h that !o~t 'tvoutlld have deemed it sculptured by Scopas, for chan~e never llerfectly lnu a cs 1e truth," |