kinds of sea productions, such as madrepores, fungi marini, &c. The Touraine contains full nine square leagues in surface, and, wherever it is dug, furnishes these fragments of shells.

Mr. Whitehurst observes, that we shall be less astonished at this very considerable quantity of shells, when we consider the vast increase of shell-fish. It is not uncommon to take away a bed of these shellfish, several fathoms in thickness; and although the places where they are fished for appear to be entirely exhausted, yet, in the ensuing year, as many will be found in all these places as before.

Hardell Cliff, in Hampshire, contains a great variety of turbinated and bivalve shells, which still retain the native matter and colour of marine shells. Many of these are natives of very distant regions; and others of them are not known to exist in a living state. In some parts of Suffolk, shells are so numerous, that they are dug up for manure, and produce excellent crops.

Within ten yards of the summit of Naphat, a remarkable mountain in Ireland, elevated several hundred fathoms above the level of the sea, are many vast beds of marine shells of various kinds, as whelks, muscles, cockles, &c. In Derbyshire and Staffordshire, Mr. Whitehurst frequently observed, with astonishment, enormous masses of limestone composed almost entirely of fossil shells, or other marine relicks, diffused throughout the solid substance of the strata. The isle of Shepy, in Kent, contains not only the teeth of sharks, and the bones of fish, but such a great variety of fossil bodies belonging both to the animal and vegetable kingdoms, as evidently show it to be an assemblage of adventitious matter. In fine, the remains of marine animals. imbedded in the solid substance of stone, chalk, and clay, and in sand, gravel, &c. in all parts of the known world, are so extremely numerous, that

it is quite unnecessary to add any more instances of the kind'.

Mr. Whitehurst, in collecting together these, and many other curious facts, relative to fossil bodies, does not appear to have had any intention to point out the faults of other systems, but to avail himself of such parts of them as were applicable to his own design; namely, to trace appearances in nature from causes truly existent, and to inquire after those laws by which the Creator chose to form the world, not those by which he might have formed it, had he so pleased. In consequence of this design, having given a very copious and scientific account of the general phenomena of fossil bodies, he has deduced from them the following inferences.

First, The great analogy in the figure, colour, and consistence of fossil bodies, to the shells, bones, and teeth of living fish, together with a gradual change in their component parts, from a testaceous, to a stony metallic substance, evidently shows, that all such fossil bodies were originally productions of the sea.

Secondly, Their being found in all parts of the world, even imbedded in the highest mountains, as well as in valleys, and deep recesses of the earth, remote from the sea, evidently shows that the sea prevailed universally over the earth; and, consequently, that these marine animals were created prior to the primitive islands, and likewise prior to

For a great variety of particulars on this interesting subject, the curious reader is referred to Mr. Whitehurst's Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth, chap. vii. He should also, since this is a branch of knowJedge which is daily receiving fresh accessions and modifications, peruse the articles Geology and Oryctology, in the Pantologia, and Parkinson's Organic Remains of a former World.' → Ib. ch. vi.

• See Inquiry, ch. v.

terrestrial animals, agreeably to the scripture account of the creation.

Thirdly, And since they are found at various depths in the earth, even to that of several thousand feet, and in different states of decay, and variously impregnated with stony or metallic matter, and even changed into the substance of the stone in which they are imbedded; it evidently appears, that the strata were originally in a state of fluidity, and that they were thus entombed and deprived of life, in successive periods of time.

Fourthly, the beds of fossil shells which consist of one species only, and are not native of the climate where found, but of very distant regions of the earth, evidently show that they were generated, and have lived and died, in the very beds where found, and could not have been removed from their native climate by a flood, or floods of water, with so much order, as to form beds consisting of only one select species; and, therefore, all such beds must have been originally the bottom of the ocean.

Such are the inferences which Mr. Whitehurst has deduced from the interesting facts he has collected; which tend to corroborate, he observes, the several results arising from the former parts of his Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth: namely, that the earth was originally a fluid chaotic mass, totally unfit for animal or vegetable life: that it was progressively formed into a habitable world: that marine animals were created prior to the primitive islands, and consequently prior to terrestrial animals; that they were entombed in the bowels of the earth, in successive periods of time, and before dry land appeared. These inferences, however, have been questioned by more recent geologists, who, in their turn, have advanced, notions fully as liable to objection. Time and mul

tiplied inquiries in every direction, are requisite to the formation of an unobjectionable theory.

Then brass, and gold, and iron ore, were found,
And pond'rous lead and silver pressed the ground.

IN my last two papers, I have conducted my readers into the interior regions of our globe: I have treated of its wonderful natural fissures and caverns, the disposition of the different kinds of earths, and the nature and origin of that part of fossil productions, which we denominate extraneous. I have been hitherto accompanied by the philosopher, not the poet: in treating, however, of mines, and their productions, which I have already noticed as native fossils, I find more than one poetical invitation:

Through dark retreats pursue the winding ore,

Search Nature's depths, and view her boundless store;
The secret cause in tuneful numbers sing,

How metals first were framed, and whence they spring:
Whether the active sun, with chymic flames,
Through porous earth transmits his genial beams;
With heat impregnating the womb of night,
The offspring shines with its paternal light:

Or whether, urged by subterraneous flames,
The earth ferments, and flows in liquid streams;
Purged from their dross, the nobler parts refine,
Receive new forms, and with fresh beauties shine :-
Or whether by creation first they sprung,

When yet unpoised the world's great fabric hung:
Metals the basis of the earth were made,
The bars on which its fixed foundation's laid:
All second causes they disdain to own,
And from th' Almighty's fiat sprung alone.

YALDEN.

And now the regions deep explore,
Where metals ripen in vast cakes of ore.
Here, sullen to the sight, at large is spread
The dull unwieldy mass of lumpish lead.
There, glimm'ring in their dawning beds, are seen
The light aspiring seeds of sprightly tin.
The copper sparkles next in ruddy streaks.

grace,

The silver then, with bright and burnished
Youth and a blooming lustre in its face,
To th' arms of those more yielding metals flies,
And in the folds of their embraces lies.

GARTH.

In treating this subject philosophically, it is requisite first to mention mines, those artificial excavations, in which metals, minerals, or even precious stones, are dug up. These mines obtain various denominations, because the matter, or substances, dug out of them, is various. Thus, there are goldmines, silver-mines, copper-mines, lead-mines, tinmines, iron-mines, diamond-mines, mines of antimony, of alum, &c.

The richest and most celebrated gold and silvermines are those of Peru and Chili, in South America. Iron-mines are more abundant in Europe than elsewhere. Copper-mines are chiefly found in Sweden, Denmark, and England; and lead and tin-. mines in England; the latter, more particularly in the county of Cornwall. Quicksilver-mines abound principally in Hungary, Spain, Friuli in the Venetian territories, and Peru; diamond-mines, in the