Quote#Nature
The title of a work of Cardano's, published in 1552, 'De Subtilitate'…
Quote byCharles Lyell · 1797–1875
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Chpt.3, p. 29.
English (original)
The title of a work of Cardano's, published in 1552, 'De Subtilitate' (corresponding to what would now be called Transcendental Philosophy), would lead us to expect, in the chapter on minerals, many far fetched theories characteristic of that age; but when treating of petrified shells, he decided that they clearly indicated the former sojourn of the sea upon the mountains.
— Charles Lyell
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the extension of the sea had been greater at some former periods
Pallas, in more recent times, has drawn the same inference.
important changes had taken place
in the form of the coasts of Asia, and
The first who endeavored to draw a clear line of demarcation between these distinct departments, was Hutton, who declared that geology was in no ways concerned with 'questions as to the origin of things.
This doctrine, it is true, had been laid down in terms almost equally explicit by Strabo, to explain the occurrence of fossil shells in the interior of continents, and to that geographer, and other writers of antiquity, Hooke frequently …