the advancement of science, even up to the middle of the eighteenth century.
Another important work appeared in France about this time, Bourguet's "Traité des Pétrifactions," published in 1758, which is well illustrated with faithful plates. In England, a discourse on earthquakes, by Dr. Robert Hooke, was published in 1705. This author held some views in advance of his time, and maintained that figured stones were "really the several bodies they represent or the moldings of them petrified, and not, as some have imagined, a lusus naturæ, sporting herself in the needless formation of useless things." He anticipates one important conclusion from fossils, when he states that "though it must be very difficult to read them and to raise a chronology out of them, and to state the intervals of time wherein such or such catastrophes and mutations have happened, yet it is not impossible." He also states that fossil turtles, and such large Ammonites as are found in Portland, seem to have been the productions of hotter countries, and hence it is necessary to suppose that England once lay under the sea within the torrid zone. He seems to have suspected that some of the fossils of England belonged to extinct species, but thought they might possibly be found living in the bottom of distant oceans.
Dr. Woodward's "Natural History of the Fossils of England" appeared in 1729. This work was based on a systematic collection of fossils which he had brought together, and which he subsequently bequeathed to the University of Cambridge, where it is still preserved, with his arrangement carefully retained. The descriptive part of this work is interesting, but his conclusions are made to coincide strictly with the Scriptural account of the creation and deluge. He had previously stated, in another work, that he believed "the whole terrestrial globe to have been taken to pieces and dissolved at the flood, and the strata to have settled down from this promiscuous mass." In support of this view, he stated that "marine bodies are lodged in the strata according to the order of their gravity, the heavier shells in stones, the lighter in chalk, and so of the rest."[1]
The most important work on fossils published in Germany at this time was that of George Wolfgang Knorr, which was continued after his death by Walch. This work consisted of four folio volumes, with many plates, and was printed at Nuremberg, 1755-'73. A large number of fossils were accurately figured and described, and the work is one of permanent value.[2] A French translation of this work appeared in 1767-'78. Burton's "Oryctographie de Bruxelles," 1784, contains figures and descriptions of fossils found in Belgium.
Abraham Gottlieb Werner (1750-1817), Professor of Mineralogy
