"*
[footnote] *Leop. von Buch, 'Descr. des Canaries', p. 394; Fiedler, 'Reise
durch das Konigreich Griechenland', th. ii., s., 181, 190, und 516.
We may here infer the existence of an imperfectly metamorphosed flotz
formation, if faith can be yielded to the testimony of Origen, according to
whom, the ancient Eleatic, Xenophanes of Colophon* (who supposed the whole
earth's crust to have been once covered by the sea), declared that marine
fossils had been found in the quarries of Syracuse, and the impression of a
fish (a sardine) in the deepest rocks of Paros.
[footnote] *I have previously alluded to the remarkable passage in Origen's
'Philosophumena', cap. 14 ('Opera', ed. Delarue, t. i., p. 893). From the
whole context, it seems very improbable that Xenophanes meant an impression
of a laurel ([Greek words]) instead of an impression of a fish ([Greek
words]). Delarue is wrong in blaming the correction of Jacob Gronovius in
changing the laurel into a sardel. The petrifaction of a fish is also much
more probable than the natural picture of Silenus, which, according to Pliny
(lib. xxxvi., 5), the quarry-men are stated to have met with in Parian
marble from Mount Marpessos. 'Servius ad Virg., AEn.', vi., 471.
The Carrara or Luna marble quarries, which constituted the principal source
from which statuary marble was derived even prior to the time of Augustus,
and which will probably continue to do so until the quarries of Paros shall
be reopened, are beds of calcareous sandstone -- macigno -- altered by
Plutonic action, and occurring in the insulated mountain of Apuana, between
gneiss-like mica and talcose schist.
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