Projekt: Bestände der Universitätsbibliothek Freiberg
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Second edition
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Parlamentsperiode
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Titel
Chapter VI. Of the transport of animal bodies pertaining to the ingulfed and perished earth, from the tropics northward - Of the instrument or vehicle of their transport - Of their imbedment in the calcareous and other soils of the primitive sea, then fluid and moveable - Of the drainage and desiccation of those soils, and their final induration into secondary rocks - Of the cleaving of those rocks in desiccation, and the disclosure of their contents
CHAPTER VI. The first great difficulty which the mineral geo logy has created for itself, occurs in that amazing phenomenon, the mingled remains of animals of dif ferent species and climates, discovered, in exhaustless quantities, in the interior of all parts of the earth; so that, the exuvice of animal genera now existing only within the torrid zone, and those of genera which no longer exist at all, are found confusedly mixed together in the soils of the most northerly latitudes. “ In examining the mineral masses “ of the earth, (says the mineral geology,) “ the observer is astonished at the prodigious “ quantity of the fragments of animals and vege- “ tables which they contain. He will recol- “ lect the order, in which organic beings are “ distributed upon the surface of the globe; some, “ can only live in the bosom of the sea, others, in “ fresh-water; some, are only to be found within “ the torrid zone; while there are others, which “ would perish the moment they should be re- “ moved from the frigid zone; in a word, each “ species appears as it were fixed to an ele- “ ment, or climate, proper and peculiar to it. “ Whereas, in the strata of the earth every thing is “ out of its place; the remains of animals which “ can exist only in the depths of the ocean, are VOL. II. G
