I 455 1
and'Ofero, and o f the adjacent inlands,, is only a continuation o f
the fame, and formed at the fame time by a very, ancient fea,
and in lefs remote ages, though always very far from-ours, interrupted
by- a new fea,. And certainly the Adriatick o f our days,
ought to be. called a new fea, very different from the ancient
ocean,. which, formed the whole o f that tradf o f country,, which
the Adriatick, and the rivers,- by little and little, go on corroding,
i f the fpoils o f animals,-ftill preferved in the bowels of.
thofe vaft petrified ftrata, are o f totally different fpeeies from
thofe that now inhabit our feas. 1 know not what the biihop
Broualliu*, profeffor Bring,, and the-other- ant agon ids to the diminution
o f the waters, and their change o f feats, could anfwer
to thefe manifeft fads. They were certainly in the wrong to
call 'in religion to the afliftance of their favourite hypothefis,..
endeavouring to oppofe and overthrow the obfervations o f the.
moft learned - naturalifls, by arbitrary interpretations o f facred.
texts. Religion never is a gainer on fuqh occafions j witnefs the -
abjuration o f Galileo, which does fo much diihonour. to Italy,
The marine air; and perhaps- the fea water, which has -always-
ibmetbing o f acid in it,- make a very curious operation on the
fuperficies of the fpeeies o f marble expofed to their-adivity.-
It would have been thought extravagant enough i f any.body had
pretended to defire, or hope,, that the moft diligent ftone-cutter
i-n the. world, by means o f a chiffel, or the moft profound cbemift,
by means- o f fame menftrunm, ihould fhew us the courfe, and.
diramations o f the veffels in ftones ; many lithologifts by pro-
f e f f i o n would.never even have fufpeded their exiftence. I had
however, the pleafure o f feeing this executed in the moft mafterly
manner along the ihores o f thofe illands, and fometimes on the;
lower parts o f the hills. The points of the fecond ftratum, that'