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Show 42 LAZZORO MORO. bl great step beyond Wood ward's diluvian ever unte.n a e, .w ast a hich Vallisneri and a f tcr 1n ·m a1 1 t he hypothesis, agams w ' h'1 . . 1 1 . t 'formly contended, w 1 e It was watm y Tuscan geo ogis s, um . f B 1 0' * l l tile members of the Institute o o obna . supportec 1y · f G · I . f that day S}Jada, a pnest o rczzana, m Among ot 1ers o ' . b d' 1737 . t t ·ove that the petrified marme o tes near WlO e 0 pi • .1 · .L' Veron' a were no t dt'luvian ·t · Mattani drew s1m1. ar m1eren.c e., f l 1 11 f Volterra and other places; wlnle Costanhm, rom tle s 1c s o ' on t 11 e ot h er hand , whose observation.s on the valley of the Brenta and other districts were not wtthout value, undertook to vindicate the truth of the deluge, as also to prove that Italy had been peopled by the descendants. of Japhett. " Lazzoro Moro, in his work ~pubhshed m ~ 740/,' On the Marine Bodies which are found m the ~ountams .~, attempted to apply the theory of earthquakes,. as expounded by St~~bo, Pliny, and other ancient authors, w.Ith whom he .was .famtha~, to the geological phenomena descnbe~ by Va1hsnertll· Hts attention was awakened to the e1evatmg power of subterranean forces, by a remarkable phenomenon which happened in his own time, and wh~ch had als? been noticed by Vallisncri in his letters. A new 1sland rose m 1707, from a deep part of the sea near Santorino in the Me~iterran.ean, du~ing continued shocks of an earthquake, and mcreasmg raptdly in size, grew in less than a month to be half a mile in circumference, and about twenty-five feet above high-water mark. It was soon afterwards covered by volcanic ejections, but when first examined it was found to be a white rock, bearing on its surface living oysters and crustacea. In order to ridicule the various theories then in vogue, Moro ingeniously supposes the arrival on this new isle of a party of naturalists ignorant of its recent origin. One immediately points to the marine shells, as proofs of the universal deluge ; another argues, that they demonstrate the former residence of the sea upon the mountains; a third dismisses them as mere sports of nature; * Brocchi, p. 28. t Ibid. p. 33. t Ibid. p. 37. § Sui Crostacei ed altri Corpi marini che si trovano sui Monti. II Moro does no~ cite the works of Hooke and Ray, and although so ~any .of his views were in accordance with theirs, he was probably ignorant of their wri~· ings, for they had not been translated. As he always refers to the Latin odi· ti?n of Burnet, and a French translation of Woodward, wQ may presume that ho diu not rea<l English. LAZZORO MORO.-GENERELLI. 43 while a fourth affirms, that they were born and nourished within the rock in ancient caverns, into which salt water had been raised in the shape of vapour, by the action of subterranean heat. Moro pointed with great judgment to the faults and dislocations of the strata described by V allisneri, in the Alps and other chains, in confirmation of his doctrine, that the continents had been heaved up by subterranean movements. He objected, on solid grounds, to the hypotheses of Burnet and of Woodward; yet he ventured so far to disregard the protest of Vallisneri, as to undertake the adaptation of every part of his own system to the Mosaic account of the creation. On the third day, he said the globe was every where covered to the same depth by fresh water, and when it pleased the Supreme Being that the dry land shoulq appear, volcanic explosions broke up the smooth and regular surface of the earth composed of primary rocks. These rose in mountain masses above the waves, and allowed melted metals and salts to ascend through fissures. The sea g·radually acqui·red its saltness from volcanic .exhalations, and, while it became more circumscribed in area, increased i~ depth. Sand and ashes ejected by volcanoes were regularly disposed along the bottom of the ocean and formed the secondary strata, which in their turn were lifted up by earthquakes. We shall not attempt to follow him in tracing the proO't·ess of the . f 5 creation o vegetables, and animals on the other days of crea-tion ; but, upon the whole, we may remark that few of the old cosmological theories had been conceived with so little viola. tion of known analogies. 'l.,he style of Moro was extremely prolix, and, like Hutton, who, at a later period, advanced many of the same views he stood in need of an illustrator. The Scotch geologist was' not more fortunate in the advocacy of Playfair, than was Moro in numbering amongst his admirers Cirillo Generelli, who, nine years afterwards, delivered at a sitting of Academicians at Cremona a spirited exposition of his theory. This learned Carmelitan friar does not pretend to have been an original observer, but he had studied sufficiently to be enabled to confirm the opinions of Moro by arguments from other writers · and his selection of the doctrines then best established is s~ judicious, that we shall present a brief abstract of them to our readers, as illustrating the state of geology in Europe, and in |