But let us proceed; we meet with these marine productions even on the tops of the highest mountains; for example, on Mount Cenis, in the mountains of Genes, in the Apennines, and in most of the stone and marble quarries in Italy; also in the stones of the most ancient edifices of the Romans; in the mountains of Tirol; in the centre of Italy, on the summits of Mount Paterne, near Bologna; in the hills of Calabria; in many parts of Germany and Hungary, and generally in all the high parts of Europe[233:A].
In Asia and Africa, travellers have remarked them in several parts; for example, on the mountains of Castravan, above Barut, there is a bed of white stone as thin as slate, each leaf of which contains a great number and diversity of fishes; they lie for the most part very flat and compressed, as does the fossil fearn-plants, but they are notwithstanding so well preserved, that the smallest traces of the fins, scales, and all the parts which distinguish each kind of fish, are perfectly visible. So likewise we find many sea muscles, and petrified shells between Suez and Cairo, and on all the hills and eminences of Barbary; the greatest part are conformable to the kinds at present caught in the Red Sea[234:A]. In Europe, we meet with petrified fish in Sweden and Germany, and in the quarry of Oningen, &c.
The long chain of mountains, says Bourguet, which extends from Portugal to the most eastern parts of China, the mountains of Africa and America, and the vallies of Europe, all inclose stones filled with shell-fish, and from hence, he says, we may conclude the same of all the other parts of the world unknown to us.
The islands in Europe, Asia, and America, where men have had occasion to dig, whether in mountains or plains, furnish examples of fossil shells, which evince that they have that in common with the bordering continents.
Here then is sufficient facts to prove that sea shells, petrified fish, and other marine productions are to be found in almost every place we are disposed to seek them.
"It is certain, says an English author (Tancred Robinson), that there have been sea-shells dispersed on the earth by armies, and the inhabitants of towns and villages, and that Loubere relates in his Voyage to Siam, that the monkies of the Cape of Good Hope, continually amuse themselves with carrying shells from the sea shores to the tops of the mountains; but that cannot resolve the question, why these shells are dispersed over all the earth, and even in the interior parts of mountains, where they are deposited in beds like those in the bottom of the sea."