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 together. At Chaumont so great a quantity of petrified shells are found that the hills appear to be composed of nothing else. It is the same at Courtagnon, near Rheims, where there is a bank of shells near four leagues broad, and whose length is considerably more. I mention these places as being famous and striking the eye of every beholder.
With respect to foreign countries, here follows the observations of some travellers:
"In Syria and Phœnicia, the rocks, particularly in the neighbourhood of Latikea, are a kind of chalky substance, and it is perhaps from thence that the city has taken the name of the white promontory. Nakoura, anciently termed Scala Tyriorum, or the Tyrians Ladder, is nearly of the same nature, and we still find there, by digging, quantities of all sorts of shells, corals, and other remains of the deluge29."
On mount Sinai, we find only a few fossil shells, and other marks of the deluge, at least if we do not rank the fossil Tarmarin of the neighbouring mountains of Siam among this number, perhaps the first matter of which their marble is formed, had a corrosive virtue not proper to preserve them. But at Corondel, where the rocks approach nearer our free-stone, I found many shells, as also a very singular sea muscle, of the descoid kind, but closer and rounder. The ruins of the little village Ain le Mousa, and many canals which conduct the water thereto, furnish numbers of fossil shells. The ancient walls of Suez, and what yet remains of its harbour, have been constructed of the same materials, which seem to have been taken from the same quarry. Between, as well as on all the mountains, eminences and hills of Lybia, near Egypt, we meet with a great quantity of sea weed, as well as vivalvous shells, and of these which terminate in a point, most of which are exactly conformable to the kinds at present caught in the Red Sea.
The moving sand in the neighbourhood of Ras Sem, in the kingdom of Barca, covers many palm trees with petrifications. Ras Sem signifies the head of a fish, and is what we term the petrified village, where it is said men, women, and children are found, who with their cattle, furniture, &c. have been converted into stone; but these, says Shaw, are vain tales and fables, as I have not only learnt from M. le Maire, who at the time he was Consul at Tripoly, sent several persons thither to take cognizance of it, but also from very respectable persons who had been at those places.
Near the pyramids certain pieces of stone worked by the sculptor, were found by Mr. Shaw, and among these stones many rude ones of the figure and size of lentils; some even resemble barley half-peeled; these, he says, were reported to be the remains of what the workmen ate, but which does not appear probable, &c. These lentils and barley are nothing but petrified shells called by naturalists lentil stones.
According to Misson, several sorts of these shell-fish are found in the environs of Maestricht, especially towards the village of Zicken, or Tichen, and at the little mountain called Huns. In the environs of Sienna, near Ceraldo, are many mountains of sand crammed with divers sorts of shells. Montemario, a mile from Rome, is entirely filled with them; I have seen them in the Alps, France, and elsewhere. Olearius, Steno, Cambden, Speed, and a number of other authors, as well ancient as modern, relate the same phenomena.
"The island of Cerigo, says Thevenot, was anciently called Porphyris, from the quantity of Porphyry which was taken out of it30.
"Opposite the village of Inchene, and on the eastern shore of the Nile, I found petrified plants, which grow naturally in a space about two leagues long, by a very moderate breadth; this is one of the most singular productions of nature. These plants resemble the white coral found in the Red Sea31."
"There are petrifications of divers kinds on Mount Libanus, and among others flat stones, where the skeletons of fish are found well preserved and entire; red chesnuts and small branches of coral, the same as grow in the Red Sea, are also found on this mountain."
"On Mount Carmel we find a great quantity of hollow stones, which have something of the figure of melons, peaches, and other fruits, which are said to be so petrified: they are commonly sold to pilgrims, not only as mere curiosities, but also as remedies against many disorders. The olives which are the lapides jadaici, are to be met with at the druggists, and have always been looked upon, when dissolved in the juice of lemon, as a specific for the stone and gravel."
"M. la Roche, a physician, gave me some of these petrified olives, which grew in great plenty in these mountains, where I am told are found other stones, the inside of which perfectly resemble the natural parts of men and women. These are Hysterolithes."
"In going from Smyrna to Tauris, when we were at Tocat, says Tavernier, the heat was so great, as obliged us to quit the common road, and go by the mountains, where there is constantly shade and refreshing air. In many places we found snow and a quantity of very fine sorrel, and on the top of some of those mountains we found shells like those upon the sea shores, which was very extraordinary."
Here follows what Olearius says on the subject of petrified shells, which he remarked in Persia, and in the rocks where the sepulchres are cut out, near to the village of Pyrmaraus:
"We were three in company that ascended to the top of the rock by the most frightful precipices, mutually assisting each other; having gained the summit, we found four large chambers, and within many niches cut in the rocks to serve for beds: but what the most surprised us was to find in this vault, on the top of the mountain, muscle shells; and in some places they were in such great quantities, that the whole rock appeared to be composed only of sand and shells. Returning to Persia, we perceived many of these shelly mountains along the coast of the Caspian sea."
To these I could subjoin many other authorities which I suppress, not willing to tire those who have no need of superabundant proofs, and who are convinced by their sight, as I have been, of the existence of shells wherever we chuse to seek for them.
In France, we not only find the shells of the French coast, but also such as have never been seen in those seas. Some philosophers assert, that the quantity of these foreign petrified shells is much greater than those of our climate; but I think this opinion unfounded; for, independent of the shell-fish which inhabit the bottom of the sea, and are seldom brought up by the fishermen, and which consequently may be looked on as foreigners, although they exist in our seas, I see, by comparing the petrifactions with the living analagous animals, there are more of those of our coasts than of others: for example, most of the cockles, muscles, oysters, ear-shells, limpets, nautili, stars, tubulites, corals, madrepores, &c. found in so many places, are certainly the productions of our seas; and though a great number appear which are foreign or unknown, the cornu ammonis, the lapides juduica, &c. yet I am convinced, from repeated observations, that the number of these kinds is small in comparison with the shells of our own coasts: besides, what composes the bottom of almost all our marble and lime-stone but madrepores, astroites, and all those other productions which are formed by sea insects, and formerly called marine plants? Shells, however abundant, form only a small part of these productions, many of which originate in our seas, and particularly in the Mediterranean.
The Red sea produces corals, madrepores, and marine plants in the greatest abundance: no part furnishes a greater variety than the port of Tor; in calm weather so great a quantity present themselves, that the bottom of the sea resembles a forest; some of the branched madrepores are eight or ten feet high. In the Mediterranean sea, at Marseilles, near the coasts of Italy and Sicily; in most of the gulphs of the ocean, around islands, on banks, and in all temperate climates, where the sea is but of a moderate depth, they are very common.
M. Peyssonel was the first who discovered that corals, madrepores, &c. owed their origin to animals, and were not plants as had been supposed. The observation of M. Peyssonel was a long time doubted; some naturalists, at first, rejected it with a kind of disdain, nevertheless they have been obliged since to acknowledge its truth, and the whole world is at length satisfied that these formerly supposed marine plants, are nothing but hives or cells formed by insects, in which they live as fish do in their shells. These bodies were, at first, placed in the class of minerals, then passed into that of vegetables, and now remain fixed in that of animals, the genuine operations of which they must ever be considered.
There are shell-fish which live at the bottom of the sea, and which are never cast on the shore; authors call them Pelogiæ, to distinguish them from the others which they call Litterales. It is to be supposed the cornu ammonis, and some other kinds that are only found in a petrified state, belong to the former, and that they were filled with the stony sediment in the very places they are found. There might also have been certain animals, whose species are perished, and of which number this shell-fish might be ranked. The extraordinary fossil bones found in Siberia, Canada, Ireland, and many other places, seem to confirm this conjecture, for no animal has hitherto been discovered to whom such bones could belong, as they are, for the most part, of an enormous size.
These shells, according to Woodward, are met with from the top to the bottom of quarries, pits, and at the bottom of the deepest mines of Hungary. And Mr. Ray assures us, they are found a thousand feet deep in the rocks which border the isle of Calda, and in Pembrokeshire in England.
Shells are not only found in a petrified state, at great depths, and at the tops of the highest mountains, but there are some met with in their natural condition, and which have the gloss, colours, and lightness of sea-shells; and to convince ourselves entirely of this matter, we have only to compare them with those found on the sea shores. A slight examination will prove that these fossil and petrified shells are the same as those of the sea; they are marked with the same articulations and in the glossopetri, and other teeth of fishes, which are sometimes found adhering to the jaw-bone, the teeth of the fish are remarked to be smooth and worn at the extremities, and that they have been made use of when the animals were alive.
Almost every where on land we meet with fossil-shells, and of those of the same kind, some are small, others large, some young, others old; some imperfect, others extremely perfect and we likewise sometimes see the young ones adhering to the old.
The shell-fish called purpura has a long tongue, the extremity of which is bony, and so sharp, that it pierces the shells of other fish; by which means it draws nutriment from them. Shells pierced in this manner are frequently found in the earth, which is an incontestible proof that they formerly inclosed living fish, and existed in those parts where there were the Purpura.
The obelisks of St. Peter's at Rome, according to John of Latran, were said to come from the pyramids of Egypt; they are of red granite, which is a kind of rock-stone, and, as we have observed, contains no shells; but the African and Egyptian marble, and the porphyry said to have been cut from the temple of Solomon, and the palaces of the kings of Egypt, and used at Rome in different buildings, are filled with shells. Red porphyry is composed of an infinite number of prickles of the species of echinus, or sea chesnut; they are placed pretty near each other, and form all the small white spots which are in the porphyry. Each of these white spots has a black one in its centre, which is the section of the longitudinal tube of the prickles of the echinus. At Fichen, three leagues from Dijon, in Burgundy, is a red stone perfectly similar in its composition to porphyry, and which differs from it only in hardness, not being more so than marble; it appears almost formed of prickles of the echini, and its beds are of a very great extent. Many beautiful pieces of workmanship have been made of it in this province, and particularly the steps of the pedestal of the equestrian statue of Louis le Grand, at Dijon.
This species of stone is also found at Montbard, in Burgundy, where there is an extensive quarry; it is not so hard as marble, contains more of the echini, and less of the red matter. From this it appears that the ancient porphyry of Egypt differs only from that of Burgundy in the degree of hardness, and the number of the points of the echini.
With respect to what the curious call green porphyry, I rather suppose it to be a granite than a porphyry; it is not composed of spots like the red porphyry, and its substance appears to be similar to that of a common granite. In Tuscany, in the stone with which the ancient walls of Volatera were built, there are a great quantity of shells, and this wall was built 2500 years ago. Most marbles, porphyries, and other stones of the most ancient buildings, contain shells and other wrecks of marine productions, as well as the marble we at present take from the quarry; therefore it cannot be doubted, independent even of the sacred testimony of holy writ, that before the deluge the earth was composed of the same materials at it is at present.
From all these facts it is plain that petrified shells are found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and in every place where the observations have been made; they are also found in America, in the Brasils; for example, in Tucumama, in Terra Magellinica, and in such a great quantity in the Antilles, that directly below the cultivable land, the bottom of which the inhabitants call lime, is nothing but a composition of shells, madrepores, astroites, and other productions of the sea. These facts would have made me think that shells and other petrified marine productions were to be found in the greatest part of the continent of America, and especially in the mountains, as Woodward asserts; but M. Condamine, who lived several years at Peru, has assured me he could not discover any in the Cordeliers, although he had carefully sought for them. This exception would be singular, and the consequences that might be drawn from it would be still more so; but I own that, in spite of the testimony of this celebrated naturalist, I am much inclined to suppose, that in the mountains of Peru, as well as elsewhere, there are shells and other marine petrifications, although they have not been discovered. It is well known, that in matter of testimonies, two positive witnesses, who assert to have seen a thing, is sufficient to make a complete proof; whereas ten thousand negative witnesses, and who can only assert not to have seen a thing, can only raise a slight doubt. This reason, united with the strength of analogy, induces me to persist in thinking the shells will be found on the mountains of Peru, especially if we search for them on the rise of the mountain, and not at the summit.
The tops of the highest mountains are generally composed of rock, stone granite, and other vitrifiable matters, which contain no shells.
All these matters were formed out of the beds of the sand of the sea, which covered the tops of these mountains. When the sea left them, the sand and other light bodies were carried by the waters into the plains, so that there remained only rocks on the tops of the mountains, which had been formed under those beds of sand. At two, three, or four hundred fathoms below the tops of these mountains, are often found marble and other calcinable matter, which are disposed in parallel strata, and contain shells and other marine productions; therefore it is not surprising that M. de la Condamine did not find any shells on these mountains, especially if he sought for them in the elevated parts of those mountains which are composed of rock, free-stone, or vitrifiable sand; but had he examined the lower parts of the Cordeliers, he would undoubtedly have found strata of stone, marble, earth, &c. mixed with shells; for in every country where observations have been made, such beds have always been met with.
But suppose that in fact there are no marine productions in the mountains of Peru, all that may be concluded from it will no ways affect our theory; and it might be possible, that there are some parts of the globe which never were covered with water, especially of such elevation as the Cordeliers. But in this case there might be some curious observations made on those mountains, for they would not be composed of parallel strata, the materials also would be very different from those we are acquainted with; they would not have perpendicular cracks; the composition of the rocks and stones would not at all resemble those of other countries; and lastly, in these mountains we should find the ancient structure of the earth such as it originally was before it was changed by the motion of the waters; we should see the first state of the globe, the old matters of which it was composed, its form, and the natural arrangement of its parts; but this is too much to expect, and on too slight foundations; and it is more conformable to reason to conclude that fossil-shells are to be found in those mountains, as well as in every other place.
With respect to the manner in which shells are placed in the strata of earth or sand, Woodward says, "All shells that are met with in an infinity of strata of earth, and banks of rocks, in the highest mountains, and in the deepest quarries and mines, in flints, &c. &c. in masses of sulphur, marcasites, and other metallic and mineral bodies, are filled with similar substances to that which includes them, and never any heterogeneous matter, &c.
"In the sand stones of all countries (the specific weight of the different kinds of which vary but little, being generally with respect to water as 2-1/2 or 9/16 to 1), we find only the conchae, and other shells which are nearly of the same weight, but they are usually found in very great numbers, whereas it is very rare to meet with oyster-shells (whose specific weight is but as 2-1/3 to 1), or sea cockles (whose weight is but as 2 or 2-1/8 to 1), or other sorts of lighter shells; but on the contrary in chalk, (which is lighter than stone, being to water but as 2-1/10 to 1), we find only cockles and other kinds of lighter shells, page 32, 33."
It must be remarked, that what Woodward says in this place with respect to specific gravity, must not be looked upon as a general rule, for we find lighter and heavier shells in the same matters; for example, shells of cockles, of oysters, of echini, &c. are found in the same stones and earth; and even in the royal cabinet may be seen a petrified cockle in a cornelian, and echini petrified in an agate, &c. therefore the specific weight of the shells has not influenced so much as Woodward supposes their position in the earth. The reason why such light shells are found more abundantly in chalk is, that chalk is only the ruinated part of shells, and that those of the echini being lighter and thinner than others, would have been most easily reduced into powder or chalk, so that the strata of chalk are only met with in the places where formerly a great abundance of these light shells were collected, the destruction of which formed that chalk, in which we find those shells, which having resisted the frictions, are preserved entire, or at least in parts large enough to discover their species.
But this subject is treated more fully in our discourse on minerals; we shall here content ourselves with saying, that a modification must be given to Woodward's expressions: he seems to say, that shells are found in flints, cornelians, in ores, and sulphur, as often, and in as great a number as in other matters; whereas the truth is, that they are very rare in all vitrifiable or purely inflammable substances; and, on the contrary, are in prodigious abundance in chalk, marl, and marbles, insomuch that we cannot absolutely pretend to say, that the lightest and heaviest shells are found in corresponding strata, but only that in general they are oftener found so than otherwise. They are all filled with the substance which surrounds them, whether found in horizontal strata or in perpendicular fissures, because both have been formed by the waters, although at different times and in different manners. Those found in horizontal strata of stone, marble, &c. have been deposited by the motion of the waves of the sea, and those in flints, cornelians, and all matters which are in the perpendicular fissures, have been produced by the particular motion of a small quantity of water, loaded with lapidific or metallic substances. In both cases these matters were reduced into a fine and impalpable powder, which has filled the shells so fully and absolutely, as not to have left the least vacuum.
There is therefore in stone, marble, &c. a great multitude of shells which are whole, beautiful, and so little changed, that they may be easily compared with the shells preserved in cabinets, or found on the sea shores.
Woodward, in pages 23 and 24, proceeds, "There are, besides these, great multitudes of shells contained in stones, &c. which are entire and absolutely free from any such mineral mixture; which may be compared with those at this time seen on our shores, and which will be found not to have any difference, being precisely of the same figure and size; of the same substance and texture as the peculiar matter which composes them is the same, and is disposed and arranged in the same manner; the direction of their fibres and spiral lines are the same, the composition of the small lama formed by their fibres is the same in the one as the other; we see in the same part vestigia of tendons, by means of which the animal was fastened and joined to its shell; we see the same tubercles, stria and pipes; in short, the whole is alike, whether within or without the shell, in its cavity or on its convexity, in its substance or on its superficies. In other respects these fossil shell-fish are subject to the same common accidents as those of the sea; for example, they sometimes grow to one another, the least are adherent to the large; they have vermicular conduits; pearls are found therein, and other similar matters which have been produced by the animal when it inhabited its shell; and what is very considerable, their specific gravity is exactly the same as that of their kind found actually in the sea; in all chymical experiments they answer exactly with sea-shells; when dissolved they have the same appearance, smell and taste; in a word, their resemblance is perfectly exact."
I have often observed with astonishment, as I have already said, whole mountains, chains of rocks, enormous banks of quarries, so full of shells and other wrecks of marine productions, that their bulk surpassed that of the matter in which they were deposited.
I have seen cultivated fields so full of petrified cockles that a man might pick them up with his eyes shut, others covered with cornu ammonis, and some with cardites; and the more we examine the earth, the more we shall be convinced that the number of these petrifications is infinite, and conclude, that it is impossible that all the animals which inhabited these shells existed at one time.
I have made an observation, that in all countries where we find a very great number of petrified shells in the cultivated lands which are whole, well preserved, and totally apart, have been divided by the action of the frost, which destroys the stone and suffers the petrified shells to subsist a longer time.
This immense quantity of marine fossils found in so many places, proves that they could not have been transported thither by the deluge; for if these shells had been brought on the earth by a deluge, the greatest part would have remained on the surface of the earth, or at least would not have entered to the depth of seven or eight hundred feet in the most solid marble.
In all quarries these shells form a share of the internal part of the stone, sometimes externally covered with stalactites, which is much less ancient matter than stone, which contains shells. Another proof this happened not by a deluge is, that bones, horns, claws, &c. of land animals, are found but very rarely, and not at all in marble and other hard stone whereas if it was the effect of a deluge, where all must have perished, we should meet with the remains of land animals as well as those of the sea.
It is a vain supposition to pretend that all the earth was dissolved at the deluge, nor can we give any foundation to such idea, but by supposing a second miracle, to give the water the property of a universal dissolvent. Besides, what annihilates the supposition, and renders it even contradictory, is, that if all matters were dissolved by that water, yet shells have not been so, since we find them entire and well preserved in all the masses which are said to have been dissolved; this evidently proves that there never was such dissolution, and that the arrangement of the parallel strata was not made in an instant, but by successive sediments: for it is evident to all who will take the trouble of observing, that the arrangement of all the materials which compose the globe, is the work of the waters. The question therefore is only whether this arrangement was made at once, or in a length of time: now we have shewn it could not be done all at once, because the materials have not kept the order of specific weight, and there has not been a general dissolution; therefore this arrangement must have been produced by sediments deposited in succession of time; any other revolution, motion, or cause, would have produced a very different arrangement. Besides, particular revolutions, or accidental causes, could not have produced a similar effect on the whole globe.
Let us see what the historian of the Academy says on this subject anno 1718, p. 3. "The numerous remains of extensive inundations, and the manner in which we must conceive mountains to have been formed, sufficiently proves that great revolutions have happened to the surface of the earth. As far as we have been able to penetrate we find little else but ruins, wrecks, and vast bodies heaped up together and incorporated into one mass, without the smallest appearance of order or design. If there is some kind of regular organization in the terrestrial globe it is deeper than we have been able to examine, and all our researches must terminate in digging among the ruins of the external coat, but which will still find sufficient employment for our philosophers.
"M. de Jussieu found in the environs of St. Chaumont a great quantity of slaty or foliated stones, every foliage of which was marked with the impression of a branch, a leaf, or the fragment of a leaf of some plant: the representations of leaves were exactly extended, as if they had been carefully spread on the stone by the hand; this proves they had been brought thither by the water, which always keeps leaves in that state: they were in different situations, sometimes two or three together. It may easily be supposed that a leaf deposited by water upon soft mud, and afterwards covered with another layer of mud, imprints on the upper the image of one of its two surfaces, and on the under the image of the other; and on being hardened and petrified would appear to have taken different impressions; but, however natural this supposition may be, the fact is not so, for the two laminæ of stone bear impressions of the same side of the leaf, the one in alto, the other in bas releaf. It was M. Jussieu who made these observations on the figured stones of St. Chaumont; to him we shall leave the explication, and pass to objects which are more general and interesting.
"All the impressions on the stones of St. Chaumont are of foreign plants; they are not to be found in any part of France, but only in the East Indies or the hot climates of America; they are for the most part capillary plants, generally of the species of fern, whose hard and compact coat renders them more able to imprint and preserve themselves. Some leaves of Indian plants imprinted on the stones of Germany appeared astonishing to M. Leibnitz, but here we find the same wonderful affair infinitely multiplied. There even seems in this respect to be an unaccountable destination of nature, for in all the stones of St. Chaumont not a single plant of the country has been found.