While I withhold my assent, however, from this hypothesis,
I must deny it to every other I have ever seen, by which their authors
pretend to account for the origin of shells in high places. Some of
these are against the laws of nature, and therefore impossible; and
others are built on positions more difficult to assent to, than that
of De la Sauvagiere. They all suppose these shells to have covered
submarine animals, and have then to answer the question, How came they
fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea? And they answer it, by
demanding what cannot be conceded. One, therefore, who had rather have
no opinion than a false one, will suppose this question one of those
beyond the investigation of human sagacity; or wait till further and
fuller observations enable him to decide it.
_Chanteloup_. I heard a nightingale to-day at Chanteloup. The gardener
says it is the male, who alone sings, while the female sits; and
that when the young are hatched, he also ceases. In the boudoir at
Chanteloup, is an ingenious contrivance to hide the projecting steps of
a staircase.
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