Observations and Reflections on Geology Author:John Hunter Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EXTRANEOUS FOSSILS. PART II. WHERE AND HOW FORMED. I HIS leads us in some degree into the Natural History of their formation, for it explains in what ma... more »nner they came into such situations, with the mode of [their] being fossilized ; and we find in some degree a correspondence between the land- and sea-productions answering the short account of the alterations of the surface of the earth; each will explain the other. Extraneous Fossils, as they are the remains of either vegetables or animals that inhabited the surface of the earth, we must suppose, are formed either on its surface, or they are formed within it, but at no great depth. Those that are formed on its surface must have been covered with water ; which may be in various ways, and will admit of variety ; for some may be considered as intermediate, having been on the surface, and afterwards covered, either by the various earths deposited upon them, or [by] their sinking into it, or placed in large subterraneous caves, upon which water, impregnated with various earths, dropped. But I have already observed, how far we are to consider some of these as fossil, I would not determine; but the principal of those called fossil are certainly what constitute a true fossil. This conducts us to bodies of water, but more particularly the sea, as the great fossilizer, being the greatest body of water. How far the lakes have the same property I will not say ; for it is asserted of Loch Neagh, in Ireland, that a piece of wood is changed for [into] a stone by being immersed in it. 9 As the sea has afforded the truest fossils, as also the greatest number, I shall begin with those peculiar to that situation. I have already observed that the rivers carry along with them matter of various kinds to the sea, and in two states,...« less