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Show 52 BRANDER-SOLDAN£. d H k , uugestion that the convulsions still less to defen do~ e st~e Noachi:n deluge. He adverts 1 tall took place urmg . 1 h f h ta mtho s apparent m. d ' t' of the former tropiCa eat o t e 0 lCa wns . f . 1 e d th ~ changes in the spectes o amma s climate of Europe, atnh n;st obscure and difficult problems in d plants as among e I h . h' an 'In re ard to the islands raised frorri t e sea, w1t m geol~gy. f h' g t ·adition he declares that some of them the tzmes o zstory or r ' • • d h were compose d of st ra ta containing or(bJ 'amc remf ams, an 1 t a· t they were not, as B uf fion had asserted, made o mhe re vo · came matter. HI.S wor k co ncludes with an eloquen.t e1x7 0o7rt at.w n hto natura1 .IS t s, to examine the isles wh. ich rose m 'd m tt e G . A h' 1 uo and in 17~0 m the Azores, an no to ree1an rc 1pe ao ' d · " · tb neglect such splendid opportunities of stu ymg nature m e act of par t un't 'w n. " That Hooke's writings should fh ave b·e ehn ne lected for more than half a century' was matter o as~oms - m!t to Raspe ; but, it is still more wonderful that h1s own luminous exposition of that theory should, for more than ano-ther half century, have excited so little inter~st. . . Gustavus Brander published, in 1766, Ius." Foss1ha Han· toniensia," containing excellent figures of fossil ~hells f~o~ th~ more modern marine strata of our island. '' V ar1ous opmwns, he says in the preface, " had been entertained concerning the time when and how these bodies became deposited. Some there are who conceive that it might have been effected in a wonderful length of time by a gradual changing and shifting of the sea &c. But the most common cause assigned is that of " the del~ge." This conjecture, he says, even if the unive:sa1ity of the flood be not called in question, is purely hypothetical. In his opinion fossil animals and testacea were, for the most p~rt, of unknown species, and of such as were known, the hvmg analogues now belonged to southern latitudes. Soldani * applied successfully his knowledge of zoology to illustrate the history of stratified masses. He explained that microscopic testacea and zoophytes inhabited the depths of the Mediterranean, and that the fossil species were, in like ma~ner, fo~nd in those deposits wherein the fin()ness of their particles, and the absence of pebbles, implied that they were accumulated in a deep sea far from any shore. '!'his author first remark~ the alternation of marine and fresh-water strata in the Paris "' Saggio orittografico, &c. 1780, and other Work11, FORTIS-TESTA-WIIITEIIURST, 53 basin. A lively controversy arose between Fortis and another Italian naturalist, Testa, con~erning the fish of Monte Bolca, in 1793. 'l'heir letters •, written with great spirit and elegance, shew that they were aware that a large proportion of the Subapennine shells were identical with living species, and some of them with species now living in the torrid zone. Fortis con; ecturcd that when the volcanos of the Vicentin were burning, the waters of the Adriatic had a higher temperature; and in this manner, he said that the shells of warmer regions may once have peopled their own seas. But Testa was disposed to think, that these species of testacea were still common to their own and to equinoctial seas, for many, he said, once supposed to be confined to hotter regions, had been afterwards discovered in the Mediterranean t. While these Italian naturalists, together with Cortesi and Spallanzani, were busily engaged in pointing out the analouy between the deposits of modern and ancient seas, and the l1abits and arrangement of their organic inhabitants, and while some pro?Tess was making in the same country, in investigating the ancient and modern volcanic rocks, the most original observers among the English and German writers, W allerius and White hurst :j:, were wasting their strength in contending, according to the old Woodwardian hypothesis, that all the strata were formed by the Noachian deluge. But Whitehurst's description of the rocks of Derbyshire was most faithful, and he atoned for false theoretical views, by providing data for their refutation. . The mathem~tician, Boscovich, of Ragusa in Dalmatia, in his letters, published at Venice in 177fl, declared his persuasion, that the effects of earthquakes, although insensible in the course of a few years, do nevertheless raise, from time to time, • Lett, sui Pesci Fossili di Bolca. .'Jfilan, 1793. t This ar~ument of Testa has bee~ strengthened of late years by the discovery, that dealers m shells had long been m the habit of selling Mediterranean species as. shells of more southern and distant latitudes, for the sake of enhancing ihoir ~nee.. It appears, moreover, from several hundred experiments made by that distmgutshecl hydrographer Captain Smyih, on the water within eight fathoms of the surfa~e, t~at the temperature of the Mediterranean is on an average 3!o of Fa~re~he1t h1gher than the western part of the Atlantic ocean; an important fact Wh1ch .m some degree may help to explain why many species nre common to tropical lat!tu~es, and to the Mediterranean. f Inquiry into the 01·igina.l State and Formation of the Eal'th. 1778. |
