In Asia and Africa, travellers have remarked them in several parts; for example, on the mountains of Castravan, above Barut, there is a bed of white stone as thin as slate, each leaf of which contains a great number and diversity of fishes; they lie for the most part very flat and compressed, as does the fossil fearn-plants, but they are notwithstanding so well preserved, that the smallest traces of the fins, scales, and all the parts which distinguish each kind of fish, are perfectly visible. So likewise we find many
sea muscles, and petrified shells between Suez and Cairo, and on all the hills and eminences of Barbary; the greatest part are conformable to the kinds at present caught in the Red Sea[234:A]. In Europe, we meet with petrified fish in Sweden and Germany, and in the quarry of Oningen, &c.
The long chain of mountains, says Bourguet, which extends from Portugal to the most eastern parts of China, the mountains of Africa and America, and the vallies of Europe, all inclose stones filled with shell-fish, and from hence, he says, we may conclude the same of all the other parts of the world unknown to us.
The islands in Europe, Asia, and America, where men have had occasion to dig, whether in mountains or plains, furnish examples of fossil shells, which evince that they have that in common with the bordering continents.
Here then is sufficient facts to prove that sea shells, petrified fish, and other marine productions are to be found in almost every place we are disposed to seek them.
"It is certain, says an English author (Tancred Robinson), that there have been sea-shells dispersed on the earth by armies, and the
inhabitants of towns and villages, and that Loubere relates in his Voyage to Siam, that the monkies of the Cape of Good Hope, continually amuse themselves with carrying shells from the sea shores to the tops of the mountains; but that cannot resolve the question, why these shells are dispersed over all the earth, and even in the interior parts of mountains, where they are deposited in beds like those in the bottom of the sea."
On reading an Italian letter on the changes happened to the terrestrial globe, printed at Paris in the year 1746, I was surprised to find these sentiments of Loubere exactly corresponded. Petrified fish, according to this writer, are only fish rejected from the Roman tables, because they were not esteemed wholesome; and with respect to fossil-shells, he says the pilgrims of Syria brought, during the times of the Crusades, those of the Levant Sea, into France, Italy, and other Christian states; why has he not added that it was the monkies who transported the shells to the tops of these mountains, which were never inhabited by men? This would not have spoiled but rendered his explanation still more probable.
How comes it that enlightened persons, who pique themselves on philosophy, have such various ideas on this subject? But doing so, we shall not content ourselves with having said that petrified shells are found in almost every part of the earth which has been dug, nor with having related the testimonies of authors of natural history; as it might be suspected, that with a view of some system, they perceived shells where there were none; but quote the authority of some authors, who merely remarked them accidentally, and whose observations went no farther than recognising those that were whole and in the best preservation. Their testimony will perhaps be of a still greater authority with people who have it not in their power to be assured of the truth of these facts, and who know not the difference between shells and petrifications.
All the world may see the banks of shells in the hills in the environs of Pans, especially in the quarries of stone, as at Chaussée, near Séve, at Issy, Passy, and elsewhere. We find a great quantity of lenticular stones at Villers-Cotterets; these rocks are entirely formed thereof, and they are blended without any order with a kind of stony mortar, which binds them