the fossil remains, comprising seventy-eight different quadrupeds, forty-nine are of species distinct from any, known to naturalists of the present day. Eleven or twelve species are now known; and sixteen or eighteen belong to others bearing considerable resemblance to known species. He ascertained, also, that the remains of oviparous animals are found in more ancient strata, than those of the viviparous class. From these data it would appear, that, in the formation of 196 yards, being the depth from the top of the eleventh to the lowest point of the chalk, there have been no less than tena geological epochs; in which the sea appears to have twice covered that part of the globe; and twice retired from it b.

Leaves of trees, trunks of bituminous wood, vast quantities of shells, with bones of fish and other marine animals, are perpetually found among the Sub-Apennines of Italy. On the sides of Monte Sarchio, between Rome and Naples, are shells mixed with blue marl. Similar remains have been discovered in Monte Tabor. At the feet of the Ligurian mountains is a tract of breccia, agglutinated scales of mica, and pieces of quartz, in which are imbedded shells, bivalve and univalve; and a profusion of madrepores. Similar organic substances have been discovered on the Superga, near Turin, two thousand and sixty-four feet above the level of the sea; and along the Apennines overlooking Modena,

a fossil tooth, we may not only, by that slight indication, know the class and order to which it belonged; but even the prominent character of its nature, a It is to be remembered, that the third and fourth strata lie parallel with each other.

by Geological science proves to demonstration, that God makes use of ages, perhaps of millions of years, to produce effects, that one simple instantaneous fiat might effect. Hence we learn, that there is a slow and successive development in the schemes of his providence; and hence a hope is excited, a vivid and animating hope, that this is his mode of dealing with individual man; and that it is the way in which he rears the highest faculties of his nature for an interminable growth; and eternity of increase.-FELLOWS. The Religion of the Universe, p. 56.

Parma, Piedmont, and Placentia. In Modena, the waters of the wells spring from beds of gravel mixed with marine shells. These shells are more than sixty feet in depth; and yet more than one hundred and thirty feet above the level of the Mediterranean.

The shells, thus found, have a general analogy with each other, though many of them belong to species, long supposed to be natives of other oceans. Subsequent investigations, however, have proved, that many of those shell-fish, which have for ages been supposed to belong only to the Indian, African, and Northern Seas, the insulated recesses of the Caspian, the bays of Nicobar, and the coasts of South America, have not only been found in the neighbourhoods of Naples and Ravenna; but, as above described, imbedded in strata of blue marl, in the bosom of the Sub-Apennines, sixty feet below successive strata of black earth, mixed with vegetable substances.

On a hill, distant about twenty miles from Verona, are found stones, disposed in slates; which being split, discover in each the half of a fish. Its species is known by the head, the eye, the spine, and the tail. Many of these were preserved in the collection of Vincenzio Bozza of Verona ; who formed a collection of petrified fishes, taken from Mount Bolca: some of which the Abbé Fortis identified with fishes on the coasts of Otaheite. The borders of Mount Baldo, on the lake Du Garda, exhibit large pieces of greyish marble, full of sea-shells, converted into a substance of white spatha: near the sanctuary of Corona, flints mixed with fragments of star-fishes; and on the side of the Altissimo marks of fishes in calcareous stone. Entire skeletons of animals, supposed by some to be whales, have been dug up in Tuscany, Bologna, Piedmont, and Placentia, out of strata of blue marl. Indeed, so many of these fossil remains have been found in the Superiore Valdarno, that Targione called it "the Cemetery of Elephants." In this district, also, have been found bones

of rhinoceroses, and hippopotami; as well as near Leghorn, Viterbo, Verona, Rome, Naples, and in Calabria. They lie, for the most part, not more than a few feet below the surface; but in one instance, near Rome, those of the elephant lie imbedded twenty feet deep in volcanic tufo. Some of those, found so near the surface of the earth, may, however, have been buried by the Romans, who were accustomed to collect great numbers of Asiatic and African animals for their savage exhibitions.

Those dug up in Valdarno Superiore and near Placentia were incrusted with oyster shells; which adhered so closely to them, that to break the bones was to break the oystershells at the same time. But it is probable, that as these bones are found among marine shells, they are really not the bones of elephants, but of some marine animals resembling them in anatomy.

It is to be observed, that the fossil shells, found near Paris, are, for the most part, totally distinct from those of the SubApennines.

The ruins of Agrigentum stand upon a mountain composed of a concretion of sea-shells, as hard as marble;-and a stratum of bones has been found in Istria and Ossaro, under rocks of marble, forty feet in thickness. Marble itself, also, has been found in Egypt, Italy, and Scotland, in which sea-shells are compactly indurated. Elephants' teeth, too, have been dug out of a marble quarry in Saxony: they are preserved in the Royal Museum of Copenhagen. These marbles were, doubtless, once of a soft nature like mud; and have become hard by the retirement of the water.

a Immense beds of bones have been found, between the mouths of the Lena and Indigerka, of mammoths, buffaloes, and rhinoceroses.-A vast multitude are also seen in the caverns of the German mountains. These mountains form a chain, two hundred leagues in extent. The cave most rich in remains is that of Gayleureuth, in Franconia.

For a descriptive catalogue of the fossil shells of the Sub-Apennines, vide Bracchi's Conchiologia Fossile Sub-Apennina con osservagioni Geoloche sugli Appennini sul Suolo adjacente. Tom. ii.

Sea-shells are witnessed in Peru, more than 10,000 feet above the waters of the ocean; on the summit of the mountains of Arsagar are seen the bivalve shells of the Caspiana; rings for cables are still observed in the rocks near Sevastopole in Tartary; where the inhabitants insist the sea once flowed. Thus, while fossil shells have been discovered in the quarries of Flanders, and among the Alps behind Genoa, the Pyrenees, the Caucasus, Athos, Lebanon, Ararat, the Riphæan ridge, and the steep mountains of New Ireland, the Andes present strata, either of shells, sea-weeds, or skeletons of fishes, amphibia, and other animals, not only at their feet, but in their girdles and near their very summits. Indeed, multitudinous are the evidences, in almost all parts of the globe, that what is now dry land, quarry, rock, and mountain, have, at separate periods of time, been in a state of liquidity.

The formations, to which the Parisian strata apply, were made at different epochs of time; each stratum was once the surface of that part of the globe in which it is now situated; and the animals, found imbedded, there lived, and there perished. It is, indeed said, that some species lie in a stratum, which extends several hundred miles, unmixed with the other strata above or below. Now this is very possible; and there ought to be little doubt as to the fact; but we are no more to apply this comparative greatness of extent to the whole globe, than the natives of the deserts of Asia can be allowed to insist, that, because deserts cover vast tracts, therefore deserts pervade the entire surface of the earth.

a The Caspian loses, by evaporation, the quantity it receives from the rivers, that flow into it. Between this sea and the Black Sea the Caucasus rises like an immense wall; yet M. Olivier imagines the two seas once to have communicated towards the north of the Caucasus.-Pallas inclines to the same opinion; and M. Dureau de la Malle has also shown the probability of its having once had a communication with the lake of Ural.

Herodotus. Euterpe, xii.

© Labillardière, Voy. in Search of La Pérouse, vol. i. p. 258.

Strata, containing vegetable remains, seldom discover marine shells or bones. Little can be accurately inferred from this; the whole subject being wrapped in ambiguity; but it is not improbable, that each successive epoch has been marked by phenomena peculiar to itself: and, therefore, it is no great stretch of reasoning to suppose, that the whole has several times been peopled with animals and vegetables, different from those now in existence.

ASTRONOMICAL CHANGES.

Is it possible, my Lelius, to travel where Nature does not speak to us? If we coast the shores of the Mediterranean, or behold the sun, setting in unclouded majesty in the Adriatic;—if we inhale the temperate breezes of the Levant, or drink the odours, wafted by the winds over an Arabian sea; if we measure the vastness of the Pacific, encounter the snows of the Northern, or the ices of the Antarctic ocean; -still do we behold Nature operating on her usual plan; her laws still fixed; her bounty still munificent. What ambrosial ideas of long, unbroken, universal slumbers fasten on the mind; when, as we muse along the sea-shore, the waters touch the beach without a murmur; and our spirit seems, as if it were capable of gliding to eternity, on the surface of the deep! In the east, the moon, rising like an immense exhalation, tinges the edges of the clouds with golden tints, and reflects her serene countenance on the bosom of the waters.-All is still.-To the north a distant cloud suspends in the horizon;-its blue tints gradually shade into a deep sable; thunder murmurs in remote volumes; the sea appears, for a while, to listen; its waves at length begin insensibly to agitate; its bosom swells, the waves break, the cliffs are

a It is the same hand-writing that we read, the same system and contrivance that we trace, the same unity of object, and relation to final causes, which we see maintained throughout, and constantly proclaiming the UNITY of the great divine Original.—Buckland's Inaug. Lect., 1819, p. 13.