Dissertation on a Solid Body Naturally Contained Within a Solid

DE SOLIDO INTRA SOLIDVM &c.

but only in passing, and as if they were doing something else. Therefore, that I might satisfy the laws of analysis to the best of my ability, I have woven and re-woven the web of this investigation so many times, and have searched into its individual parts, until I saw no difficulty left in the reading of authors, nor in the objections of friends, nor in the inspection of the places, which I had not either resolved or at least determined how far it could be resolved from the things known to me hitherto.

The first question was whether Glossopetrae Melitenses tongue-stones of Malta were once the teeth of sharks, which it was immediately apparent was the same as the general question: whether bodies similar to marine bodies, which are found far from the sea, were once produced in the sea. But since other bodies similar to them are also found in the lands, which grow in fresh waters, air, and other fluids, if we grant the earth the power of producing these bodies, we cannot withdraw from it the faculty of generating the rest; it was necessary, therefore, to extend the question to all those bodies which, when dug up from the lands, are found to be similar to those bodies which we see growing elsewhere in a fluid. But also, many other things are found in rocks endowed with a certain figure, which, if anyone were to say were produced by the power of the place, it is necessary that he admit all the rest were produced by the same power. And so, at last, I saw the matter led to this: that every solid naturally enclosed within a solid must be examined, whether it was produced in the place in which it is found, that is, that the nature must be examined...