he Mosaic deluge--Palissy--Steno
--Scilla--Quirini--Boyle--Lister--Leibnitz--Hooke's
Theory of Elevation by Earthquakes--Of lost species of
animals--Ray--Physico-theological writers--Woodward's Diluvial
Theory--Burnet--Whiston--Vallisneri--Lazzaro
Moro--Generelli--Buffon--His theory condemned by the Sorbonne
as unorthodox--His declaration--Targioni--Arduino--Michell
--Catcott--Raspe Fuchsel--Fortis--Testa--Whitehurst--Pallas
--Saussure.

_Arabian writers._--After the decline of the Roman empire, the
cultivation of physical science was first revived with some success by
the Saracens, about the middle of the eighth century of our era. The
works of the most eminent classic writers were purchased at great
expense from the Christians, and translated into Arabic; and Al Mamun,
son of the famous Harun-al-Rashid, the contemporary of Charlemagne,
received with marks of distinction, at his court at Bagdad, astronomers
and men of learning from different countries. This caliph, and some of
his successors, encountered much opposition and jealousy from the
doctors of the Mahometan law, who wished the Moslems to confine their
studies to the Koran, dreading the effects of the diffusion of a taste
for the physical sciences.[32]

_Avicenna._--Almost all the works of the early Arabian writers are lost.
Amongst those of the tenth century, of which fragments are now extant,
is a short treatise, "On the Formation and Classification of Minerals,"
by Avicenna, a physician, in whose arrangement there is considerable
merit. The second chapter, "On the Cause of Mountains," is remarkable;
for mountains, he says, are formed, some by essential, others by
accidental causes. In illustration of the essential, he instances "a
violent earthquake, by which land is elevated, and becomes a mountain;"
of the accidental, the principal, he says, is excavation by water,
whereby cavities are produced, and adjoining lands made to stand out and
form eminences.[33]

_Omar--Cosmogony of the Koran._--In the same century, also, Omar,
surnamed "El Aalem," or "The Learned," wrote a work on "The Retreat of
the Sea." It appears that on comparing the charts of his own time with
those made by the Indian and Persian astronomers two thousand years
before, he had satisfied himself that important changes had taken place
since the times of history in the form of the coasts of Asia, and that
the extension of the sea had been greater at some f