Telliamed, or, The world explain'd : containing discourses between an Indian philospher and a missionary, on the diminution of the sea, the formation of the earth, the origin of men & animals : and other singular subjects, relating to natural history & philosphy ; a very curious work.

  • Maillet, Benoît de, 1656-1738. Telliamed. English
Date:
1797
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Telliamed, or, The world explain'd : containing discourses between an Indian philospher and a missionary, on the diminution of the sea, the formation of the earth, the origin of men & animals : and other singular subjects, relating to natural history & philosphy ; a very curious work. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    [ 9». ] • habitable by them. This nrft matter was fucceed- ed by all the reft, of which the different beds of this mountain are compofed, from this mine to their very fummits. It is alfo to be obferved that in thefe beds we find a vafl number of other fhells, efpecially about Thionville. The flone there ufed for making the bed lime, aed compofed of a mud different from that of the iron-mine, is alfo full of fea-fhells, which certainly render the lime much flronger than it would otherwife be. I have alfo feen the rib of a whale in the fteep rock, on which the fortrefs of Porto Hercole is built. This rib was fhewn to Philip V. of Spain, when his gallies went into that port, to convoy him from Naples to the dutchy of Milan.. But though the mountains and quarries of Europe, like ours, include numerous teftimonies of the manner in which they have been formed, yet I find no where fuch a quantity of them as in the mountains and repofitories or public buildings of Switzerland. The repofitory of Mr. Scheuchzer at Zurich is adorned with a prodigious number of flones, in which petrified fifh of various kinds are to be feen ; in one of thefe flones there is a petrifi- ed feather. I from that country brought feveral, which I broke off from fome mountains, and which include various kinds of fifh, I have a very lingu- lar flone which I found in my paffage to Malta, when I vifited a quarry at the bottom of the port -f it includes the fin of a large fifh, which a ftroke of the wedge fo happily divided through the middle, that it is feen entire in both parts of the ftone in which it was buried. The quarry in which I found thefe two pieces was more than thirty fathoms above the prefent furface of the fea, and thirty fathoms of it were already confumed, as might be