But that which renders the original of our land clear and evident,
is the immense quantities of calcareous bodies which had belonged
to animals, and the intimate connection of these masses of animal
production with the other strata of the land. For it is to be proved,
that all these calcareous bodies, from the collection of which the
strata were formed, have belonged to the sea, and were produced in it.

We find the marks of marine animals in the most solid parts of the
earth; consequently, those solid parts have been formed after the ocean
was inhabited by those animals which are proper to that fluid medium.
If, therefore, we knew the natural history of those solid parts, and
could trace the operations of the globe, by which they had been formed,
we would have some means for computing the time through which those
species of animals have continued to live. But how shall we describe a
process which nobody has seen performed, and of which no written
history gives any account? This is only to be investigated, _first_, in
examining the nature of those solid bodies, the history of which we want
to know; and, 2_dly_, In examining the natural operations of the globe,
in order to see if there now actually exist such operations, as, from
the nature of the solid bodies, appear to have been necessary to their
formation.

But, before entering more particularly into those points of discussion,
by which the question is to be resolved, let us take a general view of
the subject, in order to see what it is which science and observation
must decide.

In all the regions of the globe, immense masses are found, which, though
at present in the most solid state, appear to have been formed by the
collection of the calcareous _exuviae_ of marine animals. The question