At Broad Chalke are sometimes found cornua ammonis of chalke. I doe
believe that they might be heretofore in as great abundance hereabout
as they are about Caynsham and Burnet in Somersetshire; but being
soft, the plough teares them in pieces; and the sun and the frost does
slake them like lime. They are very common about West Lavington, with
which the right honourable James, Earle of Abington, has adorned his
grotto's there. There are also some of these stones about Calne.
CHAPTER VIII.
AN HYPOTHESIS OF THE TERRAQUEOUS GLOBE. A DIGRESSION.
[THE seventeenth century was peculiarly an age of scientific research
and investigation. The substantial and brilliant discoveries of Newton
induced many of his less gifted contemporaries to pursue inquiries
into the arcana and profound mysteries of science; but where rational
inferences and deductions failed, they too frequently had recourse to
mere unsupported theory and conjectural speculation.
The stratification of the crust of our globe, and the division of its
surface into land and water, was a fertile theme for conjecture; and
many learned and otherwise sagacious writers, assigned imaginary
causes for the results which they attempted to explain.
The chapter of Aubrey's work which bears the above title is, to some
extent, of this nature. It consists chiefly of speculative opinions
extracted from other works, with a few conjectures of his own, which,
though based upon the clear and judicious views of his friend Robert
Hooke, do not, upon the whole, deserve much consideration; although to
the curious in the history of Geological science they may appear
interesting.
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