ANother supposed Effect of the Flood, was a bringing up out of the Sea, and scattering all the Earth over an innumerable multitude of Shells and Shell-fish; there being of these shell-like Bodies, not only on lower Grounds and Hillocks, but upon the highest Mountains, the Appennine and Alps themselves. A supposed Effect, I say, because it is not yet agreed among the Learned, whether these Bodies, formerly called petrified Shells, but now a-days passing by the name of formed Stones, be original Productions of Nature, formed in imitation of the Shells of Fishes; or the real Shells themselves, either remaining still entire and uncorrupt, or petrified and turned into Stone, or at least, Stones cast in some Animal Mold. Both parts have strong Arguments and Patrons. I shall not balance Authorities, but only consider and weigh Arguments.
Those for the latter part, wherewith I shall begin, are,
First, Because it seems contrary to that great Wisdom of Nature, which is observable in all its Works and Productions, to design every thing to a determinate end, and for the attaining that end, make use of such ways, as are most aggreeable to Man’s reason, that these prettily shaped Bodies, should have all those curious Figures and Contrivances (which many of them are formed and adorned with) generated or wrought by a Plastic Vertue, for no higher end, than only to exhibite such a form. This is Mr. Hook’s Argumentation. To which Dr. Plot answers, That the end of such Productions, is, to beautifie the World with those Varieties; and that this is no more repugnant to the Prudence of Nature, than is the production of most Flowers, Tulips, Anemones, &c. of which we know as little use of, as of formed Stones. But hereto we may reply, That Flowers are for the Ornament of a Body, that hath some degree of life in it: a Vegetative Soul, whereby it performs the actions of Nutrition, Auction and Generation; which it is reasonable should be so beautified. And, Secondly, Flowers serve to embrace and cherish the Fruit, while it is yet tender; and to desend it from the injuries of Sun and Weather; especially for the protection and security of the Apices, which are no idle or useless part, but contain the Masculine Sperm, and serve to give fecundity to the Seed. Thirdly, Though formed Stones may be useful to Man in Medicine, yet Flowers afford us abundantly more uses, both in Meat and Medicine.
Yet I must not dissemble, that there is a Phaenomenon in Nature, which doth somewhat puzzle me to reconcile, with the prudence observable in all its works; and seems strongly to prove, that Nature doth sometimes ludere, and delineate Figures, for no other end, but for the Ornament of some Stones, and to entertain and gratifie our Curiosity, or exercise our Wits. That is, those elegant Impressions of the Leaves of Plants upon Cole-state, the knowledge whereof, I must confess my self to owe to my Learned and Ingenious Friend Mr. Edward Lloyd of Oxford, who observed of it in some Cole-pits in the way from Wychester in Glocestershire to Bristol; and afterwards communicated to me a Sample of it. That which he found, was marked with the Leaves of two or three kinds of Ferns and of Harts-tongue. He told me also, that Mr. Woodward a Londoner, shewed him very good Draughts of the common female Fern, naturally formed in Cole, which himself found in Mendip Hills; and added, That he had found in the same Pits, Draughts of the common Cinquefoil, Clover-grass and Strawberries. But these Figures are more diligently to be observed and considered.
Secondly, There are found in the Earth at great distance from the Sea, real Shells unpetrified and uncorrupted, of the exact Figure and Consistency of the present natural Sea-shells, and in all their parts like them, and that not only in the lower Grounds and Hillocks near the Sea, but in Mountains of a considerable height, and distant from the Sea. Christianus Mentzelius in his Discourse concerning the Bononian Phosphorus, gives us a Relation of many Beds of them found mingled with Sand in the upper part of a high Mountain not far from Bologna in Italy. His words are these, Non procul monte Paterno dicto, lapidis Bononiensis patria, unico forte milliari Italico distanti (loci nomen excidit memoriâ) ingens mons imminet praeruptus à violentia torrentium aquarum· quas imbres frequentes ex vici[…]is montibus confluentes efficiunt, atque insignes terrarum moles ab isto monte prosternunt ac dejiciunt. In hac montis raina, superiore in parte visuntur multae strages seriésve, ex testis conchyliorum omnis generis, plurimâ arenâ interjectâ, instar strati super stratum (ut chymicorum vulgus loquitur.) Est enim inter hasce testarum conchyliorum strages seriésve arena ad crassitiem ulnae & ultra interposita. Erant autem testae variorum […]chyliorum, omnes ab invicem distinctae, nec […] lapidi impactae, adeò ut separatim […] manibus tractari & dignosci potuerint. […] hoc arena pura, nullo limo lutóve inter mix[…]a· quae conc[…]hyli[…]rum testas conservaverat […] multa secula integras. Interea verò diuturnitate temporis omn[…]s istae testae erant in albissim[…]m calcem facilè resolubiles. Not far from the Mountain called […]aterno, where the Bononian Sto[…]e is gotten, about an Italian Mile distant (the name or the place is slipt out of my memory) is a huge hanging Mountain, broken by the violence of the Torrents, caused by the confluence of Waters descending from the Neighbouring Mountains after frequent showers, throwing down great heaps of Earth from it. In the upper part of this broken Mountain are seen many Beds or Floors of all kind of Sea-shells, much Sand interposing between Bed and Bed, after the manner of stratum super stratum, or Layer upon Layer, as the Chymists phrase it. The Beds of Sand interceding between these Rows of Shells were a yard thick or more. These Shells were all distinct or separate one from another, and not stuck in any one stone, or cemented together, so that they might be singly and separately viewed and handled with ones Hands. The Cause whereof was their being lodged in a pure Sand not intermixt with any Mud or Clay, which kept the Shells entire for many Ages. Yet were all these Shells, by reason of the length of time they had lain there, easily resoluble into a purely white· Calx or Ash. Fabius Columna also observes, that in the tophaceous Hills and Cliffs about Andria in Apulia, there are found various sorts of Sea-shells, both broken and whole, uncorrupt, and that have undergone no change. And Ovid in Metam. lib. 15. Et procul à pelago Conchae jacuere marinae. I am also informed by my learned and worthy Friend Dr. Tancred Robinson, That Signior Settali shewed him in his Museum at Milan, many Turbens, Echini, Pearl shells, (one with a Pearl in it) Pectunculi, and several other perfect shells, which he himself found in the Mountains near Genoa; and afterwards my said Friend took notice also of several Beds of them himself, as he passed over Mount Cenis, above fifty Leagues distant from the Sea; he assures me that many of the great Stones about the Buildings of London are full of shells, and pieces of them. Moreover, my fore-mentioned Friend Mr. Lloyd sent me perfect Escallop and Sea-Urchin shells, exactly resembling the like Sea-shells, both for figure, colour, weight and consistency; which he himself gathered up near Oxford. And hath lately sent me word, That he found at a place called Rungewell-Hill in Surrey, at a Village called Hedley, three Miles South of Epsham, at least Twenty Miles distant from the Sea, some fossil Oysters, which by the confession of Dr. Lyster himself, were indeed true Oyster-shells not petrified nor much decayed: Nay, so like they were to Oysters newly taken out of the Sea, that a certain Person seeing of them, mistook them for such, and opened one of them, expecting to find a living fish therein. Now that Nature should form real shells, without any design of covering an Animal, is indeed so contrary to that innate Prolepsis we have of the Prudence of Nature, (that is, the Author of Nature) that without doing some Violence to our Faculties, we can hardly prevail with our selves to believe it: and gives great countenance to the Atheists Assertion, That things were made or did exist by chance, without counsel or direction to any end.
Add hereto Thirdly, That there are other Bodies besides shells found in the Earth, resembling the Teeth and Bones of some Fishes, which are so manifestly the very things they are thought only to resemble, that it might be esteemed obstinacy in any Man that hath viewed and considered them to deny it. Such are the Glossopetrae dag up in Malta in such abundance, that you may buy them by measure, and not by tale: and also the Vertebres of Thornbacks and other Cartilagineous Fishes there found, and sold for Stones among the Glossopetrae, which have no greater dissimilitude to the Teeth of a living Shark, and Vertebres of a Thoruback, then lying so long in the Earth, as they must needs have done, will necessarily induce. Mr. Doody has in his custody a petrify’d lump of Fishes, on some of which the Scales themselves still remain. And if the very inspection of these Bodies, is not enough to convince any Man, that they are no Stones, but real Teeth and Bones, Fabius Columna proves it by several strong Arguments. […]. Those things which have a woody, bony or fleshy nature, by burning are changed first into a Coal, before they go into a Calx or Ashes: but those which are of a tophaceous or stony substance, go not first into a Coal, but burn immediately into a Calx or Lime, unless by some vitreous or metallick mixture they be melted. Now these Teeth being burnt, pass presently into a Coal, but the tophous substance adhering to them, doth not so; whence it is clear, that they are of an osseous, and no stony nature.
Next he shews, That they do not shoot into this form after the manner of Salts or Crystal, which I shall have occasion further to treat of by and by. Then he proves it from the Axiom, Natura nihil facit frustra; Nature makes nothing in vain. But these Teeth, were they thus formed in the Earth, would be in vain; for they could not have any use of Teeth; as neither the Bones of supporting any Animal. Nature never made Teeth without a Jaw, nor shells without an Animal Inhabitant, nor single Bones, no not in their own proper Element, much less in a strange one. Further he argues, from the difficulty or impossibility of the Generation of Glossopetrae in such places; because, among Tophi and Stones in those dry places, there could not be found matter sit for to make them of. But granting that, he queries whether they were generated at first all of a sudden, or grew by little and little from small to great, as Animals Teeth, whose sorm they imitate, do. If the first be said, he demands, Whether the Tophus, out of which they were extracted, were generated before or after the Teeth were p[…]riected? If it be said before, he asks, Whether there were a place in it of the figure and magnitude of the Tooth, or did the Tooth make it […]ell a place? If the Tophus were concrete before, and without a cavity, the vegetative power of the Stone now in birth, could not by force make it self a place in the hard and solid Tophus; or if it could and did, the Tophus must needs be rent. Against the production of these Bodies in a compact Earth or Stone, Nic. Steno argues thus; Things that grow, expanding themselves leisurely or slowly, may indeed lift up great weights, and dilate the thinks and veins of Stones, as we see the Roots of Trees sometimes do; but yet while they do thus make room for themselves, they cannot but be often hindred by the resistance of some hard obstacle they meet with, as it happens to the Roots of Plants, which in hard Earth, being a thousand ways writhen and compressed, recede from the figure, which otherwise in soft Land they are wont to retain: whereas these Bodies, whereof we are new discoursing, are all like one mother, whether they be dug out of soft Earth, or cut out of Stones, or pluckt off Animals. Wherefore they seem not to be at this day produced in those places where they are found, because (as we have said) those things which grow in compact places are found strangely mishapen and irregular, which these are not: nor was the Earth compacted when they were there produced for the same reason. Columna proceeds, If there were a place before ready made in the Tophus, then was not that figure excavated in the Tophus by the vegetative nature of the Tooth it self; but the Tophus by its own nature and precedent cavity, gave the form to the Tooth. If the latter part be chosen, and it be said, that the Stone by its vegetative power grew by degrees; it may be answered as before, that could not be; because the hardness of the Tophus could not have yielded to the vegetative force of the Tooth, but would rather have been rent or divided by it; or rather the Tophus it self must have vegetated, containing a cavity or uterus of the shape of the Tooth, into which an osseous humour, penetrating through the Pores, and filling the cavity of the Vterus, must there have coagulated, and taken the form thereof, as is observed in Stones that have their original from a Fluor. That both Tooth and Case might vegetate together he denies, because in all the Teeth which he had seen, the Basis or Root was found broken, and that not with an uniform fracture, but different in every one. Which Argument is not to be slighted, for that it shews or proves, that there was no vegetation in the case; because in all other figured Fossils it is observed, that they are never found mutilous, broken or imperfect. Neither can it reasonably be said or believed, that these Roots or Teeth were by some chance broken within the Tophi, but rather, that when they were casually overwhelmed and buried in that tophous Earth, they were broken off from the Jaws of the Animal in those volutations, and so in that manner mutilated. Against the generation of these and the like Bodies in any hard Earth or Stone, N. Steno argues thus, That they are not at present produced in hard Earth, one may thence conjecture, that in all the parts of such Earth or Stone throughout, they are all found of the same consistence, and encompassed round on all sides with that hard matter. For if there were some of them produced anew at this present day, the containing or ambient Bodies ought to give way to them while they are growing, which they cannot; and the Bodies themselves that are now produced, would without doubt discover something wherein they differed from those that were generated of old. Another Argument to prove them to be true Teeth and no Stones, he brings from their various parts and figures, which must else have been so wrought and formed in vain. The Tooth being not one homogeneous Body, but compounded of parts of a different constitution, there must in the formation of it be made a various election of humors, one for the root, one for the inner part, one for the Superficies of it. Then for the Figures, Magnitude, Situation or Posture, and sitting of them; some are great, and broad, and almost triangular; others narrower and smaller, others very small and narrow, of a pyramidal figure, some streight, some crooked, bending downwards, or toward the neither side; some inclining toward the left, others toward the right side: some serrate with small Teeth, others with great Indentures (which is observed in the lesser triangular ones) some smooth without any Teeth, as the narrow pyramidal ones. All which things are observed in Shark’s Teeth, not only by the Learned Naturalists, but also by Fisher-men and Mariners. The first row of Teeth in these Animals hanging out of the Mouth, bend forward and downward; the second row are streight, especially toward the sides of the Mouth, where they are triangular and broad, the other rows bend downward toward the inner part of the Mouth. Thus far1 Columna.
Fourthly, If these formed Stones be indeed original Productions of Nature, in imitations of Shells and Bones, how comes it to pass, that there should be none found, that resemble any other natural Body, but the Shells and Bones of Fishes only? Why should not Nature as well imitate the Horns, Hoofs, Teeth, or Bones of Land Animals, or the Fruits, Nuts, and Seed of Plants? Now my learned Friend Mr. Edward Lloyd above mentioned, who hath been most diligent in collecting, and curious in observing these Bodies of any Man I know, or ever heard of, tells me, That he never found himself, or had seen in any Cabinet, or Collection, any one stone that he could compare to any part of a Land Animal. As for such that do not resemble any part of a Fish, they are either Rock Plants, as the Astroites, Asteriae trochites, &c. or do shoot into that form, after the manner of Salts and Fluors, as the Belemnites and Selenites.
Fifthly, Those that deny these Bodies to have been the Shells and Bones of Fishes, have given us no satisfactory account of the manner of their Production. For that they do not shoot into that form after the manner of Salts, may be proved by many Arguments. First, All Salts that shoot, their Crystals or Concretions are of one uniform substance, and their Figures are more simple, and may be owing to the Figure of the Principles whereof they are compounded. In other Bodies that shoot, as the Pyrites and Belemnites, one may observe streight Radii or Fibres proceeding from one Center. Secondly, Did those Bodies shoot into these Figures after the manner of Salts, it seems strange to me, that two shells should be so adapted together at the heel, as to shoot out to the same extension round, and the upper and nether Valve be of different Figure, as in natural shells. Thirdly, Were these Bodies produced in the manner of saline Concretions, it’s strange there should be such varieties of them, and their shapes so regular, and exactly circumscribed: so great a diversity of Figures, arguing a greater variety of Salts, or of their modifications and mixtures, than are likely to be found in Nature; and the Concretions of Salts never, that I have yet seen, appearing in that regularity of Figure and due Circumscription, as in these Bodies. This Argument Steno in his Discourse concerning these Bodies, improves and urges thus; Who can deny, that the hexaedrical Figure of Crystal, the Cubes of Marcasites, and the Crystals of Salts in Chymical Operations, and infinite other Bodies coagulating and crystallizing in a fluid, have Figures much more ordinate than are those of Scallops, Cockles, and other Bivalves, and also Periwinckles and Turbens? yet we see in these simple Bodies sometimes the top of a solid Angle cut off; sometimes many of them without any order sticking one to another; sometimes their Planes differing among themselves in magnitude and situation; and many other ways receding from their usual Figure? Which being so, how much greater and more notable defects must there needs have been in Bodies that have a far more compound Figure, such as are those which unitate the forms of Animals, if they were in like manner generated? Seeing therefore in these Bodies, which are very much compounded, these defects do seldom occur, which in those other most simple Bodies are very frequent; seeing there are no defects observed in these compound Bodies, the like whereto are not in like manner seen in the Bodies of Animals. And seeing that wheresoever they are found they are exceeding like both among themselves, and to the parts of Animals, it is very unlikely they should shoot into those Figures after the mannor of Salts; but on the contrary, highly probable that they were originally the parts of Animals; the similitude of conformation in their Pores, Striae, Hinges, Teeth, Prominences, Threds, &c. almost necessarily inferring a similitude of Original: which is an Argument of the Government of some Principle, superiour to Matter figured and moved, in their Formations.
Fourthly, Were these Bodies nothing but Concretions of Salts, or saline mixtures, it seems no less strange, that so many Liquors impregnated with all sorts of Salts and Mineral Juices, in all proportions, having been at one time or other industriously or accidentally exposed to crystallize, and let stand long in Vessels, there should never have been found in them any such Concretions. For if any had happened, we should doubtless have heard of them, and the Observers would have improved such an Experiment to the Production of the like Bodies at their pleasure. So I have finished what I have to alledge in defence of the latter part, That these formed Stones were sometimes the real Shells or Bones of Fishes, I mean the figured part of them.
I proceed now to set down, what may be objected against this Opinion, or offered in assertion of the contrary, viz. That these Bodies are primitive Productions of Nature, in imitation of the Shells and Bones of Fishes.
Against the former Opinion we have been pleading for, it may be objected, That there follow such strange and seemingly absurd Consequences from it, as are hardly reconcileable to Scripture, or indeed to sober Reason: as,
First, That the Waters must have covered the whole Earth, even the highest Mountains, and that for a long time, there being found of these Shells, not only in the most mountainous parts of our Country, but in the highest Mountains in Europe, the Appennine and Alps themselves, and that not only scattered, but amassed in great lumps, and lying thick in Beds of Sand, as we have before shewn. Now this could hardly be the effect of a short Deluge, which if it had carried any Shell-fish so high, would in all likelyhood have scattered them very thin. These Beds and Lumps of them necessarily inferring, that they must have bred there, which is a work of time.
Now the general Deluge lasted in the whole, but ten Months; and it’s not likely the Tops of the Mountains were covered half that time. Neither is it less repugnant to Reason than Scripture; for if the Waters stood so high above the Earth, for so long a time, they must by reason of their Confluence, be raised as high above the Sea too. But what is now become of this huge Mass of Waters, equal to six or seven Oceans? May not the Stoicks here set in, and help us out at a dead lift? The Sun and Moon, say they, might possibly sup it all up. Yea, but we cannot allow time enough for that; for according to the moderate Draughts they take now a-days, one Ocean would suffice to water them many Ages, unless perchance when they were young and hot, they might need more drink. But to be serious, I have no way to answer this Objection, but by denying, that there are any Beds or great Lumps and Masses of these formed Stones to be found near the Tops of the Alps, or other high Mountains; but yet there might be some particular Shells scattered there by the general Deluge. Unless we should say, that those Mountains where such Shells are found were anciently depressed places, and afterward raised up by Earthquakes. Another thing there is as difficult to give an account of, as of the Shells getting up to the Tops of Mountains: that is, of those several Beds or Floors of Earth and Sand, &c. one above another, which are observed in broken Mountains. For one cannot easily imagine whence these Floor or Beds in the manner of strata super strata (as the Chymists speak) should come, but from the Sediments of great Floods, which how or whence, they could bring so great a quantity of Earth down, when there was but little Land above the Sea, I cannot see. And one would likewise be apt to think, that such a Bed of Sands, with plenty of Cockle-shells intermixt, as we mentioned before in the Mountain near Bononia in Italy, must have been sometimes the bottom of the Sea. But before one can give a right judgment of these things, one must view the Mountains where such Layers and Beds of Earth and Shells are […]ound: for perchance they may not be elevated so high above the present Surface of the Sea, as one would judge by the descriptions of them. ‘Tis true (says my worthy Friend Dr. Tancred Robinson) that some Shells might have been scatter’d up and down the Earth by incampments of Armies, by the inhabitants of Cities and Towns, whereof there are now no remains. Mounsteur Loubere, the late French Envoy to Siam, affirms that the Monkeys and Apes at the Cape of Good Hope, are almost continually carrying Shells and other Marine Bodies from the Sea-side up to the Mountains; yet this will not solve the matter, nor give any satisfactory account, why these perfect shells are disperst up and down the Earth, in all Climates and Regions, in the deep Bowels of vast Mountains where they lye as regularly in Beds as they do at the bottom of the Sea.
secondly, It would hence follow, That many species of Shell fish are lost out of the World, […] Philosophers hitherto have been unwilling to admit, esteeming the destruction of any one Species a dismembring of the Universe, and rendring it imperfect: whereas they think the Divine Providence is especially concerned to secure and preserve the Works of the Creation: and that it is so, appears, in that it was so careful to lodge all Land-Animals in the Ark at the time of the general Deluge. The Consequence is proved in that, among these petrified Shells, there are many sorts observed, which are not at this day, that we know of, any where to be found. Such are a whole gentis of Cornua Ammonis, which some have supposed to be Nautili, though to me they do not seem so to be, but a different Genus by themselves, of which there have not any been seen either cast ashore, or raked out of the Sea, at any time, that ever I heard of. Nay, my very Learned and Honoured Friend Dr. Lister proceeds further, and saith, That when he particularly examined some of our English shores for Shells, and also the fresh Waters and the Fields, that he did never meet with any one of those Species of Shells found at Adderton in Yorkshire, Wansford-Bridge in Northamptonshire, and about Gunthorp and Beavoir Castle, &c. any where else, but in their respective Quarries. What can we say to this? Why it is possible that many sorts of Shell-fish may be lodged so deep in the Seas, or on Rocks so remote from the shores, that they may never come to our sight.
Thirdly, It follows also, That there have been Shell-fish in these cold Northern Seas of greater bulk and dimensions, than any now living; I do not say in these, but in the most Southernly and Indian; viz. Cornua Ammonis of two foot diameter, and of thickness answerable.
To this I answer, That there are no petrified Shells that do in bigness much exceed those of the natural Shell-fish found in our Seas, save the Cornua Ammonis only, which I suspect to have never been, nor had any relation to any shells of Fishes: or to imitate or resemble them, at least some of them. Against this Assertion it may be objected, That there are found in England may Pectinites bigger than any Shell-fish of that kind which our Seas now afford. And that there are no Nautili, or other testaccous Fishes with us, comparable in bigness to that Nautilus-sto[…]e of twenty eight pound found by Mr. Waller at Keinsham. To which I answer, That there may be Shell-fish in our Seas, that do not at all, or very seldom appear, greater than we are aware of. I my self, in company with Mr. Willughby, in the Streight between the Isle and Calf of Man, took up among the tall Fuci growing thick upon the Rocks there, two or three of those large Echini Marini or Sea-Vrchins, as big as a Man’s two fists, the shells whereof we never found cast up upon the shores of England, nor ever heard that any Man else did. So that I question not but there are lodged among the Rocks, and in the deeper places of the Sea, remote from the shores, many different sorts of Shell-fish, and excelling in magnitude those that are commonly found or known. And like enough it is, that after the Flood there were many places deserted, and thrown up by the Sea, and become dry Land, which had been Sea before; which must needs be replete with these Bodies. As for the Nautili, they are much different from these Cornua Ammonis. For the Nautili, at least all the Species of them known to us, are (as Dr. Plot well observes) extravagantly broad at the mouth, and have not more than two other small turns at the most, whereas the turns of the Ophiomorphites are proportionable one to another; and in number many times four or five, and sometimes six, if we may believe Aldrovand. And there are Nautili lapidei, which do as nearly resemble the Nautilus shells as any other Cochlites do their respective Prototypes, as Mr. Lloyd assures me he had observed many in Museums. And the Learned and Ingenious Mr. Richard Waller then Secretary to the Royal Society, in a Letter to me dated Febr. 4. 87. w[…]es, That he had been lately at Keinsham in Somerset shire, and making a search after the Coruua Ammonis, […]ound one of the true Nautilus shape, covered in some places with a shelly Incrustation with the Diaphragms to be seen to the Center of the Volutae, and in each Diaphragm, the hole by which they communicate one with another, by a string or gut in the Fish. This was of a very hard Stone and large size, weighing at least twenty eight pound, though some part was broken off. Another Argument that they have no relation to the common Nautili, is, that they break into pieces somewhat resembling Vertebres, as I was first advised by the fore-remembred Mr. Lloyd, and have since noted my self. I also received from that very Ingenious and Inquisitive Gentleman, happy in making natural Discoveries, Mr. William Cole of Bristol, such an account of a sort or two of these Ophiomorphous Bodies, as is enough to stagger any Man’s belief, if not utterly to overthrow his Opinion of their owing their original to any Sea-shell; which take in his words. Among others of this kind of Bodies which I have observed, I shall instance in one, which can be reduced to none but the Ophiomorphites, which I found growing between the thin Plates of a kind of brittle blew Slate in large Rocks, some a furlong within the full Sea-mark, and in some where the Water comes not at highest Tides, only in great Storms, when the Waves break, it is dasht sometimes against them, being forced up by the Winds; which being broken with a convenient Tool, will shiver all into very thin Plates; between which I have found in abundance of those Stones, but as brittle as the Slate in which they grew, and of the same consistence; but so thin, that the broadest, being about four Inches, are not so thick as a Half-Crown Piece, some not half an Inch broad, were as thin as a Groat, and so proportionably up to the largest, covered with a Superficies as thin, and exactly of the colour of Silver foil: and where the Sea-water washeth them, and they are exposed to the Sun and Wind when the Tide is gone, they are tarnished, and appear of a Gold, Purple, Blew and Red; as any thing on which Silver foil is laid, being exposed a considerable time to the Sun, Wind and Weather, will do. These have the same spiral Figures, and as regular as the other Serpent-stones, and being taken off with a Knife, leave the same Impressions on both sides of the Slate.
In some such Rocks of Slate, but much harder, I found some of those Stones of another kind, thick in proportion to their breadth, from an Inch to twenty eight Inches broad; the broadest one was at the great end (on which some Authors have fabulously reported the Head to grow) six Inches thick: all of them covered over with a white scale, which will be taken off, one coat under another, as Pearls or the shells of some Fishes. I saw some impressions as big as the Fore-wheel of a Chariot, &c. What shall we say to this? Were there ever any Shell-fish in ours, or other Seas, as broad as a Coach-wheel? others as thin as a Groat? What is become of all this kind of Ophiomorphite Shell-fish? And yet (which is strange) both these kinds by Mr. Cole*‘s description, seem to have been covered with shells*.
By what I have said concerning these Ophiomorphous stones not to have been Nautili, I would not be thought to reflect upon, of detract from the Veracity or Exactness of the Observations of Mr. Robert Hook, whom for his Learning and deep Insight into the Mysteries of Nature, I deservedly honour. I question not, but he found in the Keinsham Ophiomorphites perfect Diaphragms of a very distinct substance from that which filled the Cavities, and exactly of that kind which covered the out-side, being for the most part Whitish, or Mother of Pearl coloured. Mr. Waller fore-mentioned, attests the same, writing in his Letter to me of Febr. 4. 1687. that in the ordinary Snake stones there, the shelly Diaphragms were very visible. In this respect they do resemble Nautili; though for their Figure they are much different, and of a distinct Genus. I never broke any of the Keinsham stones; but of those found about Whitby in Yorkshire many; but could not observe in them any shell-like Diaphragms, only they broke into such pieces as I mentioned before. And my dear and much honoured Friend Dr. Tancred Robinson writes me, That he had broken several Cornua Ammonis, but could never find any Diaphragms or Valves in them, though he confesseth Mr. Woodward shew’d him one with such in his curious Collection of Petrifactions. So that these Diaphragms are not to be found in all the sorts of them. But if they be found in some, it is a strong presumption, that they were at first in all, however they came to disappear.
In fine, these Ophiomorphous Stones do more puzzle and confound me, than any other of the formed Stones whatsoever, because by Mr. Hook’s Description of those of Keinsham, they seem to have been, or to owe their original to shells; and yet there is nothing like them appears at this day in our or any other Seas, as far as I have seen, heard, or read.
Thirdly, A second Argument to prove these formed Stones never to have been Shells, Dr.2 Plot affords us, Because that even those Shells, which so exactly represent some sorts of Shell-fish, that there can be no exception upon the account of Figure, but that they might formerly have been Shells indeed, at some places are found only with one shell and not the other. Thus in Cowley Common [in Oxfordshire] we meet only with the gibbous, non the flat shell of the petrified Oyster, and so of the Escallop-stones in the Quarries near Shotover: which if they had once been the shells of Oysters and Escallops, had scarce been thus parted. To this I answer, That this Argument is not necessarily conclusive; because there may possibly be some reason of it, though we know it not, nor can easily imagine any. The like Answer may be returned to his next Argument.
Thirdly, Because (saith the Doctor) I can by no means satisfie my self, how it should come to pass, that in case these Bodies had once been moulded in Shells, some of the same kind should be found in Beds, as the Conchites at Langley, Charlton, Adderbury; and others scattered, as at Glympton, and Teynton, and so the Ostracites at Shotover and Cowley. Nor how it should fall out, that some of these Bivalves should always be […]ound with their shells separate, as the Ostracites and Pectines: and others always closed together, as the Conchites in all places I have yet seen.
Fourthly, Because many of these formed Stones seem now to be in fieri, (which is the Doctor’s next Argument) as the Selenites at Shotover and Hampton-gay, the Conchites of Glympton and Cornwell, many of which were of a perfect Clay, and others of Stone, &c. As for the Selenites, I grant them to have been in fieri, because they are formed after the manner of Salts by shooting or crystallization; but concerning the Clay Cockles, I say with the Civilians, ampliandum. Since the publishing of this Treatise, happening to read Dr. Nicol Steno’s Discourse concerning these Bodies, in his Description of a Sharkshead, I met with a very plausible Solution of this Argument or Objection. First he gives us the History of these Bodies, or his Observations concerning them; of which these following are two, 1. That in Argilla, which some english Potters Earth, and we may render a Fat Clay, he had taken notice that there were plenty of them on the Superficies of the Earth, but within the Earth but a few. 2. That in the same Argilla the deeper you descend downward, the more tender those Bodies are, so that some of them at any the least touch fall into Powder: and they also that were on the Superficies, almost all of them were without much ado reduced into a white Powder. Now (saith he) seeing in such kind of Earth, by how much deeper those Bodies lye, by so much the softer they are, and do less bear the touch, the Earth is so far from producing them, that it doth rather destroy them. Neither is there any reason to think, that they are therefore softer, because they are not yet arrived at their perfection, or come to maturity: for those things that are soft upon that account, while they are in generating, have their parts united to one another as it were by a kind of Glue (as is seen in the tender shels of Pine-Nuts and Almonds) but these Bodies, being deprived and destitute of all Glue, easily moulder to Dust. Nor is it any Objection against our Opinion, that on the surface of the Earth their number seems to encrease, for that is owing to Rains washing away the intermediate Earth: but rather their consistence when they are on the Superficies, being tender and easily crumbled into Dust, doth demonstrate, that their destruction begun in the Earth, was interrupted by the intervention of the Rain. But to give these Arguments their due, though they be not demonstrative proofs, yet they infer a great degree of probability, and shrewdly urge and shake the contrary Opinion.
The other Arguments, the Doctor alledges, admit a plausible solution, excepting such as we have already touched, and given as good an answer to, as either the matter will admit, or we were able to give.
To the first, That there are found Stones resembling Shell-fish that stick to Rocks: I answer, That many of them might by accident be rub’d off the Rocks they stick to, or thrust off by Birds insinuating their Bills between the Shell and Rock, to feed upon their meat; but by what means soever it be, that they are sometimes broken off, the matter of fact is certain; for we find many patellae cast upon the shores by the working of the Sea; Why then might they not be brought up by the Flood?
To the second, Why might not the Bones of Whales, Sea-horses, all squamose Fishes, the great shells of the Buccina, Murices, Conchae Veneris, and Solenes, and almost· all the crustaceous kind, as Crabs and Lobsters, &c. as well have been brought up and left behind by the Flood, and afterward petrified, as any of the testaceous kind? I answer, Of the great Buccina, Murices and Conchae Veneris, there are very […]ew or none found in our Seas: It may be there are of them in the Mountains and Quarries of the Indies, were any Man so curious as to search them out: Though it’s likely but few, because being great things, easie to be seen, and that part of the World having been fully peopled soon after the Flood, their beauty might invite the Inhabitants to search them out, and gather them up. But secondly, Those other kinds may possibly be less durable, and more apt to be wrought upon, to moulder, decay, and be dissolved in time by the Weather, Rains and Moisture of the Earth, or were not so susceptive of petrifying Juices.
The Third Argument is already answered in the precedent Discourse.
To the Fourth Argument as to what concerns the Selenites, Astroites and Belemnites, we have answered already. That the Species of Brontiae cannot be the petrified Shells of Echini Spatagi the Arguments the Doctor alledges out of Aristotle and Rondeletius do not evince. For though in some Seas they may be […], yet in others are they plentiful enough. In our own Seas at Llandwyn in the Isse of Anglesey, we may reasonably conjecture, they are more plentiful than the common Echini any where with us; because we found more of their Shells cast up there on the shore, than of the Echini in any shore about England: nay, so common are they there, that even the Vulgar have taken notice of them, and imposed a Name upon them, calling them Mermayds Heads. And though their Bristles or Prickles were but small, yet were they not few or thin set, as Rondeletius saith.
How the Snake-stones about Huntly-nab and Whithy in Yorkshire came to be included in Globular or Lenticular Stones, is not difficult to make out: for the Cliffs thereabout being Allum-stone or Mine, wherein these Snake-stones lye; the Sea in Spring-tides and Tempestuous Weather undermines and throws down part of the Shore or Cliffs, which by the fall break in pieces, and the Ophiomorphus stone being harder than the rest of the Cli[…], is broken off from it by the fall, or its volutation in the Sea afterward, with some part of the Cliff or Allum-stone slicking to each side of it where it is concave, and by reason of its Figure and Striae, cannot easily part from it.
Lastly, To dissemble nothing, I have my self observed some Cockle-stones to have seemingly different impressions or Striae upon the same Superficies; which Phaenomenon it is very hard to give an account of. I have also observed a large Stone almost as hard as Marble, that was so marked every where throughout with the impressions of Cockles and their Striae, so crossing one another in every part of it, that if it were nothing but shells amassed together by a stony Cement; those shells must have before their Concretion been broken into infinite small pieces or fragments, scarce any remaining entire; which I do not see how any Floods or Working of the Sea, could possibly effect.
So I have finished what I had to say concerning this supposed Effect of the Deluge, the bringing in of Shells, and scattering them all over the dry Land. But yet I must not dismiss this Particular, till I have said something to an Objection that presently occurs to any one who considers this matter. The Waters of the Flood having been supplied partly by Rains, partly by the breaking up of the Fountains of the great Deep, and not by an Irruption or Inundation of the Sea, how could any Sea-shells at all be brought in by it?
To this I answer, That the great Deep communicates with the Sea; and the Waters rising up out of the subterraneous Abyss, the Sea must needs succeed, else would there have been an empty space left in the middle of the Earth; so that the Shell-fish might as well come in this way from the bottom of the Sea, as by an Inundation: in like manner as the fish in the Lake of Carniola, called the Zirchnitzer Sea, do descend annually under ground through many great holes in the bottom, and return again by the same holes. To all this I might add, that into the Lands near the skirts of the Sea, and lower Hills, these shells might in part be brought by particular Floods, of which many we read of, and more possibly than are recorded in any History may have happened since the general Deluge. Hence the chief Champions of the Opinion of Mock-shells are not difficult to grant, that in some Countries, and particularly along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, there may all manner of shells be found promiscuously included in the Rocks or Earth, and at good distances too from the Sea. Which are the words of Dr. Lister, repeated and approved by Dr. Plot. But this will not serve their turn; for we have before proved, that in the middle part, and near the Center of our own Country, at a great distance from the Sea, viz. in Oxfordshire, there are found not only shell-like Stones, but real Shells, or Mockshells (as some esteem them) for Figure, Colour, Weight, Consistency, or any other Accident not to be distinguished from true shells; and that not such as have been accidentally scattered there, but dig’d out of the Ground in plenty, and of Fishes that are rarely found in our Seas: Patterns whereof were sent me by my Ingenious Friend Mr. Lloyd, who, I hope, will ere long gratifie the Curious, by publishing a general Catalogue of all the formed Stones found in England, and his Remarks upon them.
And I have likewise proved by good Authority, that beyond the Seas, in high Mountains, and many Leagues distant from the Sea too, there have been Beds of real shells. I might have added Sharks-teeth or Glossopetrae, as both Goropius Becanus and Georgius Agricola testifie; if not in Beds, yet plentifully disperst in the Earth. There are several Medical Histories extant (as Dr. Tancred Robinson informs me) of perfect shells found in Animal Bodies, in whose Glands they were originally formed, which is a considerable Objection, not easily to be removed.
TAB: II. pag 162 TAB: III pag. 162 TAB: IV Pag 162
← Discourse 2, Chapter 3. Of the Effects of the Deluge · Contents · Discourse 2, Chapter 5. That there have been great Charges made in the →