Dissertation on a Solid Body Naturally Contained Within a Solid

DISSERTATIONIS PRODROMVS.

I have thought it best to explain here, regarding a solid naturally enclosed within a solid fossils and strata, those things which, in return for the benefits received, will be a pledge of my grateful spirit to you, and will offer an opportunity to others who enjoy their leisure as they desire, to cultivate the studies of Physics and Geography with greater fruit.

As regards the production of a solid naturally enclosed within a solid, I will first briefly delineate the method of the dissertation, and then I will concisely recount the rarer matters that occur therein.

I had divided the dissertation itself into four parts, the first of which, acting as a proem, demonstrates that the question concerning marine objects found far from the sea is an ancient, pleasant, and useful one, but that its true solution was rendered less doubtful in the earliest times, and entirely uncertain in the recent centuries. Then, having explained the reasons why those who came later departed from the opinion of the Ancients, and why the dispute has hitherto been settled by no one in its entirety, even though many excellent things are read to have been written by many, I return at last to you, showing that it is also owed to you that, after many other things partly newly discovered under your auspices and partly liberated from ancient doubts, we hope that the final touch is shortly to be applied to this question.

In the second part, the universal problem is resolved, upon which the untying of individual difficulties depends, which is: given a body endowed with a certain figure, and produced according to the laws of Nature, to find within the body itself the arguments revealing the place and mode of production. Here, before I undertake to unfold the resolution of the problem, I labor to explain all its words in such a sense that no doubt or controversy is left in them for any sect of Philosophers.