Certainly, if at thirty-six leagues from the sea there were immense banks of marine shells; if they were flatly placed in regular beds, it would be clear that these banks had been the shore of the sea; and it is besides very likely that low ground and flats have been by turns covered by and free from water, at the distance of thirty and forty leagues; it is the opinion of all antiquity. A confused recollection of it is preserved, which has given rise to so many fables.

It is thus that Pythagoras expresses himself in Ovid:
Nil equidem durare diu sub imagine eâdem
Crediderim. Sic ad ferrum venistis ab auro,
Secula. Sic toties versa est fortuna locorum.
Vidi ego quod fuerat quondam solidissima tellus
Esse fretum. Vidi factas ex æquore terras:
Et procul a pelago concha jacuere marinæ :
Et vetus inventa est in montibus anchora summis: *
Quodque fuit campus, vallem decursus aquarum
Fecit: et eluire mons est deductus in æquor:
Eque paludosâ siccis humus aret arenis:
Quæque sitim tulerant, stagnata paludibus hument.
For nothing long continues in one mould.
Ye ages, you, from silver turn'd to gold,

To brass from silver, and to iron from brass.
E'en places oft such change of fortunes pass:
Where once was solid land, seas have I seen,
And solid land, where once deep seas have been.
Shells far from seas, like quarries on the ground;
And anchors have on mountain-tops been found.
Torrents have made a valley of a plain;

High hills by deluges borne to the main.

Deep standing lakes suck'd dry by thirsty sand;
And on late thirsty earth now lakes do stand.-SANDYS.

But why has not this ocean formed any mountain on so many flat shores abandoned to its tides? And why, if it has placed prodigious masses of shells in Touraine, has it not left the same monuments in other provinces at the same distance?

On one side, I see several leagues of shores level with the sea, in Lower Normandy; I cross Picardy, Flanders, Holland, lower Germany, Pomerania, Prus

*This slightly resembles the vessel which was pretended to have been found on the great St. Bernard.

sia, Poland, Russia, and a great part of Tartary, without a single high mountain, making part of the great chain, presenting itself to my view. I can travel thus for the space of two thousand leagues on level ground, with the exception of a few mere hills. If the sea, originally spread over our continent, had formed mountains, how is it that it has not made one in this vast extent?

On the other hand, these pretended banks of shells, at thirty and forty leagues from the sea, require the most serious examination. To this province, from

which I am an hundred and fifty leagues distant, I have sent for a box of this matter. The bottom of this mass is evidently a kind of calcareous and marly earth, mixed with talc, which is some leagues in length, and about one and a half in breadth. The pure pieces of this stony earth are a little salt to the taste. Labourers make use of it to fertilise their grounds, and it is very likely that its salt fertilises them; the same is done in my neighbourhood with gypsum. If it was merely a

mass of shells, I do not see that it could manure the earth. I might as well throw into my field all the broken snails and muscle shells of my province, which would be to sow upon stones.

Though there are very few things of which I am certain, I am sure that I should die of hunger, if I had only a field of old broken shells to live upon.

In a word, it is certain, as far as my eyes can be certain, that this marl is a species of earth, and not an assemblage of marine animals, which would be more than a hundred millions of millions in number. I know not why the first academician after Palissi, who made known this singularity of nature, could say," They are only little fragments of shells, and very recognisable as only fragments; for they have their cavities

* All that these shells could do would be to break up a too compact land. Much is done in that way with gravel. Fresh pounded shells might be good for their oil, but dry ones are good for nothing. N. B. When these shells are very friable, they might serve for composition, like chalk or marl.-French Editor.

very distinctly marked, only they have lost their worms and polish."

It is acknowledged, that in this mass of calcareous stone and earth, a single oyster shell has never been seen; but there are some muscles, because this mine is surrounded by ponds. This alone decides the question against Bernard Palissi, and destroys all the wonders which Reaumur and his imitators would give to it.

If some little fragments of shell, mixed with marly earth, were really shells of the sea, it must be confessed that they have been in this state from times which astound the imagination, and that it is one of the most ancient monuments of the revolutions of our globe. But then how could a production, buried fifteen feet beneath the ground, have such a fresh appearance? How is it that a fresh snail's shell has been found? Why should the sea have disposed of these shells to this little piece of ground alone, and not elsewhere? Is it not most likely that this falun, which has been taken for a reservoir of minute fish, is only a mass of calcareous stone of small extent?

Besides, the experience of M. de la Sauvagere, who has seen beds of shells formed in a soft stone, and who witnessed it with his neighbours,—should it not at least inspire us with some doubts?

Here is another difficulty, another subject of doubt. Between Paris and Arcueil, on the left shore of the Seine, was found a very long bank of stone, all covered with marine shells, or at least such as perfectly resembled them. A piece has been sent to me, taken at random, at an hundred feet depth. The shells must there be necessarily heaped in beds; they are scattered and in the greatest confusion. This confusion alone contradicts the pretended regularity which is attributed to the falun of Touraine.

In short, if this falun was produced by the sea, it has come near forty leagues into a flat country, and it has not formed any mountain. It is therefore not at all probable that mountains are productions of the ocean; and if the sea came forty leagues, does it follow that it has been everywhere?

Ideas of Palissi on supposed Shells.

Before Bernard Palissi pronounced that this mine of marl, of three leagues extent, was only a mass of shells, farmers were in the habit of using this manure, not suspecting that they were only shells which they employed. Had they no eyes? Why did they not believe Palissi on his word? This Palissi was besides a little visionary. He published the book entitled, The Way to become rich, and the true Manner by which all Frenchmen should learn to augment and multiply their Treasures and Possessions; by Master Bernard Palissi.' He kept a school at Paris, where he declared that he would give money to those who would prove to him the falsity of his opinions. This kind of quackery disgraced his shells, until they were again reinstated in opinion by a celebrated academician, who enriched the discoveries of Swammerdam and Leuenhoeck by the order in which he placed them, and who wished to render service to physics. Experience, as we have already said, is deceitful, and this falun must therefore be examined. It is certain that it assails the tongue with a slight tartness, which is an effect that shells will not produce. It is incontestable that the mass is a calcareous and marly earth. It is also incontestable that it contains some muscle shells, from ten to fifteen feet deep. The estimable author of the Natural History, as profound in his views as attractive in his style, says expressly, "I suppose that shells are the materials which nature makes use of to form most stones. suppose that chalks, marls, and lime-stones, are only composed of the dust and fragments of shells."

I

However physically clever we may be, we may go too far. I confess that I have examined for twelve successive years the lime-stone which I have used, and neither myself nor any of my assistants have perceived the least vestige of shells.

Have we therefore need of all these suppositions, to prove the revolutions which our globe has undergone in times so prodigiously remote? Should the sea have abandoned and covered by turns the low grounds of

its shores, only for two thousand leagues long and fifty wide, it would be a change on the surface of the globe of four-and-twenty thousand square leagues.

Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tremblings of the earth, must have overthrown a great quantity of the surface of the globe; lakes and rivers have disappeared; towns have been swallowed; islands formed; lands have been separated; interior seas may have worked even still more considerable revolutions. Are these not enough? However imagination may like to represent to herself the great vicissitudes of nature, she ought to be content with these sources of change.

I however admit it to be proved, that a prodigious multitude of ages have been required to work all the revolutions which have happened to this globe, and of which we have incontestable evidences. The four hundred and seventy thousand years of which the Babylonians, the preceptors of the Egyptians, boasted, perhaps would not suffice; but I will not contradict Genesis, which I regard with veneration. I am divided between my weak reason, which is my only guide, and the holy Jewish books, of which I comprehend nothing at all. I always confine myself to praying to God that men persecute not men; that we make not this earth, so often overthrown, a valley of misery and tears, in which serpents, destined to creep a brief minute in their respective holes, continually dart their venom against one another.

Of the System of Maillet, who, from the inspection of Shells, concludes that Fishes were the original Parents of Men.

Maillet, of whom we have already spoken, believed at Grand Cairo, that he perceived our continent had been an entire sea, in that portion of eternity which is passed. He saw shells, and this is the manner in which he reasoned: These shells prove that the sea was for millions of ages at Memphis; therefore Egyptians and apes were incontrovertibly produced by the fish of the sea.

The ancient inhabitants of the coasts of the Eu