the Roman military way in South Britain, begins at Totness, and passes through Exeter, Ivel- chester, Shepton Mallet, Bath, Cirencester, Leicester, the Vale of Belvoir, Newark, Lincoln, to Barton up- on the Humber, being still visible in several parts, though of 1400 years standing. It had the name from the fosses or ditches made by the sides of it.

in Natural History, denotes, in general, every thing dug out of the earth, whether it be a na- tive thereof, as metals, stones, salts, earths, and other minerals; or extraneous, reposed in the bowels of the earth by some extraordinary means, as earthquakes, the deluge, &c.

Native fossils are substances found in the earth, or on its surface, of a simple structure, exhibiting no ap- pearances of organization; and these are included un- der the general names of simple and compound, earthy or metallic minerals. See MINERALOGY.

Extraneous fossils are bodies of the vegetable or ani- mal kingdoms accidentally buried in the earth. Of the vegetable kingdom, there are principally three kinds; trees or parts of them, herbaceous plants, and corals: and of the animal kingdom there are four kinds; sea shells, the teeth or bony palates and bones of fishes, complete fishes, and the bones of land animals. See GEOLOGY.

These adventitious or extraneous fossils, thus found buried in great abundance in divers parts of the earth, have employed the curiosity of several of our latest na- turalists, who have each their several system to account for the surprising appearances of petrified sea fishes, in places far remote from the sea, and on the tops of mountains; shells in the middle of quarries of stone; and of elephants teeth, and bones of divers animals, pec- uliar to the southern climates, and plants only growing in the east, found fossil in our northern and western parts.

Some will have these shells, &c. to be real stones, and stone plants, formed after the usual manner of other figured stones; of which opinion is the learned Dr Lister.

Another opinion is, that these fossil shells, with all the foreign bodies found within the earth, as bones, trees, plants, &c. were buried therein at the time of the universal deluge; and that, having been penetra- ted either by the bituminous matter abounding chiefly in watery places, or by the salts of the earth, they have been preserved entire, and sometimes petrified.

Others think, that those shells, found at the tops of the highest mountains, could never have been carried thither by the waters, even of the deluge; inasmuch as most of these aquatic animals, on account of the weight of their shells, always remain at the bottom of the wa- ter, and never move but close along the ground. They imagine, that a year's continuance of the waters of the deluge, intermixed with the salt waters of the sea, up- on the surface of the earth, might well give occasion to the production of shells of divers kinds in different climates; FOS

climates; and that the universal saltiness of the water was the real cause of their resemblance to the sea shells, as the lakes formed daily by the retention of rain or spring water produce different kinds.

Others think, that the waters of the sea, and the rivers, with those which fell from heaven, turned the whole surface of the earth upside down; after the same manner as the waters of the Loire, and other rivers, which roll on a sandy bottom, overturn all their sands, and even the earth itself, in their swellings and inundations; and that in this general subversion, the shells came to be interred here, fishes there, trees there, &c. See DELUGE.

Dr. Woodward, in his Natural History of the Earth, pursuing and improving the hypothesis of Dr Burnet, maintains the whole mass of earth, with every thing belonging thereto, to have been so broken and dissolved at the time of the deluge, that a new earth was then formed on the bosom of the water, consisting of different strata or beds of terrestrial matter, ranged over each other usually according to the order of their specific gravities. By this means, plants, animals, and especially fishes and shells, not yet dissolved among the rest, remained mixed and blended among the mineral and fossil matters; which preserved them, or at least assumed and retained their figures and impressions either indentedly or in relievo. See GEOLOGY.