itone; finally, many fragments o f hones and ihells,
mixed in this mud, have dried up, and become the molt
confiderable part o f the rock.
For many leagues round, the rocks are merely fu-
perficial, having always underneath, either foft earth,
gypfeous, or detached Hones, cemented with other
matter, which accounts for the facility, with.which the
waters form fo many gullies, and little flat hills, as are
feen in different parts o f this country. It is probable,
however, that thofe beds o f earth were not fo foft formerly,
otherwife the waters would have made greater ravages,
than they actually have done ; though at prefent
the deftruction is great: there being many living wit-
neffes, who recoiled the affoniihing progrefs o f fome of
thefe gullies, as-well as the commencement of others,
which at prefent are fmall, but may one day acquire a
confiderable depth («).
(a)-Thefe'locks at 'Goncud feem to «contain bones, fimrlar to thofe, Found in the-rock o f
Cibraltar, large pieces o f which being examined by the beft anatomifts. in England,,no human,
bones were difcovered, and they were fuppo.fed to be bones of iheep;, many o f them we re. filled
with cryftallized matter. It would be an' objeft of no fma'll Curiofity to afcertain, if poffiblc,
what animals thefe bones o f Concud did once belong to.
Some large bones, fuppofed to be of elephants, -were, found in 1778, upon throwing up
the new road near .the gate of Toledo, at Madrid, and an account of them was inferted in
their gazette ; they, are now placed.in the. royal cabinet of natural hifto.ry. at Madrid.
See a curious, account of fpme foilil bones difcovered in the-ifiands of Cherfo,. and-
Ofero, by the abate Fortis, in his travels into Dalmatia, itranilated from the Italian. London,
1778s 410.
Dr. Mefpy, phyfician to the military hofpital at Florences has lately, publiihed a treatife on
fome bones found on the banks o f the Arno, in Tufcany, which are thought to be the bones
Objections
Objections perhaps may be ftarted, to what has been
offered, relating to the decompofition and recompofition
of matter, and fome may even allege, that fuch bodies
were always one, and the fame, which is contrary to experience,
and ocular demonftration. In fuch cafe, they would
find themfelves obliged to allow that minerals, fpars,
cryilals, 8cc. do not form anew, and that there is no fuch
event in nature, as decompofition and recompofition :
A principle not to be fupported by any found arguments.
We need only operi our eyes, and examine thofe enormous
oyfter ihells, feen on the furface of the earth, between
Murcia and Mula, where the foil evidently appears,
to be formed by the reduction of J.ime rock, into
calcareous earth, thefe ihells having fattened themfelves
there, when that matter was in a muddy or dif-
folved ftate, and become afterwards calcareous earth; it
being evident, they were not always in , the ftate they
are in at prefent. Let us then fuppofe, this earth to have
hardened in the courfe o f time, which is not improbable,
and to form rock or granite ; who will deny, that a
decompofition, and recompofition muit have happened?
It is not poflible indeed to produce witneffes of the fait,
becaufe the life o f man is too ihort, and the information
received from our predeceffors, too defective for that
purpofe; to which may be added the flow and incompreo
f an elephant, or fome unknown animal. The Do&or told me, when I was at Florence in
1777., that they pretended to have found the ikeleton of an elephant entire.
henfible