160. To these facts, demonstrating the great transportation of fossils in some former conditions of the globe, we may add another, recognised by all mineralogists. The animal exuviæ contained in limestone and marble, are often known to belong to seas, extremely remote from the countries where they are now found. In the chalk-beds of England, in the limestones of France, a great proportion of the petrifactions belong to the tropical seas, and appear to have been brought from the vicinity of the equator. Buffon observes, that of the fossil shells found in France, it has been disputed, whether the foreign are not more numerous than the native; and, though he is himself of opinion that they are not, it is evident that they must bear a considerable proportion to the whole.[68] In the petrifactions of Monte Bolca, near Verona, where the impressions of fish are preserved between the laminæ of a calcareous schistus, one hundred and five different species have been enumerated, of which thirty-nine are from the Asiatic seas, three from the African, eighteen from those of South, and eleven from those of North America.[69] Similar observations have been made on the marine plants, and the impressions of vegetables, found in rocks, in different parts of Europe. At St Chaumont, near Lyons, is found an argillaceous schistus, covering a bed of coal, every lamina of which is marked with the impressions of the stem, leaf, or other part of some plant; and it happens, says M. FONTENELLE, by an unaccountable destination of nature, that not one of these plants is a native of France. They are all ferns of different species, peculiar to the East Indies, or the warmer climates of America. Here also was found the fruit of a tree, which grows only on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel.[70] [Footnote 68: Buffon, Théorie de la Terre, art. 8.] [Footnote 69: Saussure, Voyages aux Alpes, tom. iii. § 1535.] [Footnote 70: Mém. De l'Acad. Des Sciences, 1718, p. 3 and 287; and 1721, p. 89, &c.] The same holds of the bodies of amphibious animals which now make a part of the fossil kingdom. The head and the bones of crocodiles have been found in the island of Shepey, at the mouth of the Thames; and the remains of an animal of the same species, but of a variety now peculiar to the Ganges, have been discovered in the alum rocks on the coast of Yorkshire.[71] These proofs of the transportation of materials by the sea, have the advantage of involving nothing hypothetical, and of being equally addressed to the geologists of every persuasion.