137-543: Amber is fossilized tree resin . Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity. Amber is used in jewelry and as a healing agent in folk medicine . There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents. Because it originates as a soft, sticky tree resin, amber sometimes contains animal and plant material as inclusions . Amber occurring in coal seams
274-467: A summarium, or list of contents, at the beginning of the work that was later interpreted by modern printers as a table of contents. The table below is a summary based on modern names for topics. Pliny's purpose in writing the Natural History was to cover all learning and art so far as they are connected with nature or draw their materials from nature. He says: My subject is a barren one –
411-414: A communic acid base, and they also include much succinic acid. Baltic amber yields on dry distillation succinic acid, the proportion varying from about 3% to 8%, and being greatest in the pale opaque or bony varieties. The aromatic and irritating fumes emitted by burning amber are mainly from this acid. Baltic amber is distinguished by its yield of succinic acid , hence the name succinite . Succinite has
548-472: A constant rate. These " molecular clocks ", however, are fallible, and provide only approximate timing: for example, they are not sufficiently precise and reliable for estimating when the groups that feature in the Cambrian explosion first evolved, and estimates produced by different techniques may vary by a factor of two. Organisms are only rarely preserved as fossils in the best of circumstances, and only
685-426: A fraction of such fossils have been discovered. This is illustrated by the fact that the number of species known through the fossil record is less than 5% of the number of known living species, suggesting that the number of species known through fossils must be far less than 1% of all the species that have ever lived. Because of the specialized and rare circumstances required for a biological structure to fossilize, only
822-511: A hardness between 2 and 3, which is greater than many other fossil resins. Its specific gravity varies from 1.05 to 1.10. It can be distinguished from other ambers via infrared spectroscopy through a specific carbonyl absorption peak. Infrared spectroscopy can detect the relative age of an amber sample. Succinic acid may not be an original component of amber but rather a degradation product of abietic acid . Class Ib ambers are based on communic acid; however, they lack succinic acid. Class Ic
959-606: A hardness between 2.0 and 2.5 on the Mohs scale , a refractive index of 1.5–1.6, a specific gravity between 1.06 and 1.10, and a melting point of 250–300 °C. Heated above 200 °C (392 °F), amber decomposes, yielding an oil of amber , and leaves a black residue which is known as "amber colophony", or "amber pitch"; when dissolved in oil of turpentine or in linseed oil this forms "amber varnish" or "amber lac". Molecular polymerization, resulting from high pressures and temperatures produced by overlying sediment, transforms
1096-499: A hierarchical classification system still in use today. Darwin and his contemporaries first linked the hierarchical structure of the tree of life with the then very sparse fossil record. Darwin eloquently described a process of descent with modification, or evolution, whereby organisms either adapt to natural and changing environmental pressures, or they perish. When Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or
1233-495: A later 2013 study was unable to extract DNA from insects trapped in much more recent Holocene copal . In 1938, 12-year-old David Attenborough (brother of Richard who played John Hammond in Jurassic Park ) was given a piece of amber containing prehistoric creatures from his adoptive sister; it would be the focus of his 2004 BBC documentary The Amber Time Machine . Amber has been used since prehistory ( Solutrean ) in
1370-484: A meal, which with him, as in the old days, was always a simple and light one, he would lie in the sun if he had any time to spare, and a book would be read aloud, from which he would take notes and extracts. Pliny the Younger told the following anecdote illustrating his uncle's enthusiasm for study: After dinner a book would be read aloud, and he would take notes in a cursory way. I remember that one of his friends, when
1507-418: A mid-Ordovician age. Such index fossils must be distinctive, be globally distributed and occupy a short time range to be useful. Misleading results are produced if the index fossils are incorrectly dated. Stratigraphy and biostratigraphy can in general provide only relative dating ( A was before B ), which is often sufficient for studying evolution. However, this is difficult for some time periods, because of
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#17327722256631644-407: A model for later encyclopedias and scholarly works as a result of its breadth of subject matter, its referencing of original authors, and its index . Pliny's Natural History was written alongside other substantial works (which have since been lost ). Pliny (AD 23–79) combined his scholarly activities with a busy career as an imperial administrator for the emperor Vespasian . Much of his writing
1781-536: A mutation first appeared. Phylogenetics and paleontology work together in the clarification of science's still dim view of the appearance of life and its evolution. Niles Eldredge 's study of the Phacops trilobite genus supported the hypothesis that modifications to the arrangement of the trilobite's eye lenses proceeded by fits and starts over millions of years during the Devonian . Eldredge's interpretation of
1918-457: A painting, a salutary warning that too much effort can be counterproductive. Everything from "a salutary warning" onwards represents the ablative absolute phrase starting with "memorabili praecepto". Pliny wrote the first ten books in AD 77, and was engaged on revising the rest during the two remaining years of his life. The work was probably published with little revision by the author's nephew Pliny
2055-570: A portion of the deceased organism, usually that portion that was partially mineralized during life, such as the bones and teeth of vertebrates , or the chitinous or calcareous exoskeletons of invertebrates . Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces ( coprolites ). These types of fossil are called trace fossils or ichnofossils , as opposed to body fossils . Some fossils are biochemical and are called chemofossils or biosignatures . Gathering fossils dates at least to
2192-400: A richly diverse assembly of early multicellular eukaryotes . The fossil record and faunal succession form the basis of the science of biostratigraphy or determining the age of rocks based on embedded fossils. For the first 150 years of geology , biostratigraphy and superposition were the only means for determining the relative age of rocks. The geologic time scale was developed based on
2329-415: A single species; and indeed a large number of conifers belonging to different genera are represented in the amber-flora. Amber is a unique preservational mode, preserving otherwise unfossilizable parts of organisms; as such it is helpful in the reconstruction of ecosystems as well as organisms; the chemical composition of the resin, however, is of limited utility in reconstructing the phylogenetic affinity of
2466-448: A small percentage of life-forms can be expected to be represented in discoveries, and each discovery represents only a snapshot of the process of evolution. The transition itself can only be illustrated and corroborated by transitional fossils, which will never demonstrate an exact half-way point. The fossil record is strongly biased toward organisms with hard-parts, leaving most groups of soft-bodied organisms with little to no role. It
2603-573: A term ἠλέκτωρ ( ēlektōr ) meaning "beaming Sun". According to myth, when Phaëton son of Helios (the Sun) was killed, his mourning sisters became poplar trees, and their tears became elektron , amber. The word elektron gave rise to the words electric, electricity , and their relatives because of amber's ability to bear a charge of static electricity . Pliny the Elder says that the German name of amber
2740-425: A third type of resin, which is often found as amber within their veins. The composition of resins is highly variable; each species produces a unique blend of chemicals which can be identified by the use of pyrolysis – gas chromatography – mass spectrometry . The overall chemical and structural composition is used to divide ambers into five classes. There is also a separate classification of amber gemstones, according to
2877-413: A uniform mass by intense hydraulic pressure, the softened amber being forced through holes in a metal plate. The product is extensively used for the production of cheap jewelry and articles for smoking. This pressed amber yields brilliant interference colors in polarized light." Amber has often been imitated by other resins like copal and kauri gum , as well as by celluloid and even glass. Baltic amber
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#17327722256633014-440: A very strong reflection, almost white. Only about 100 kg (220 lb) is found per year, which makes it valuable and expensive. Sometimes amber retains the form of drops and stalactites , just as it exuded from the ducts and receptacles of the injured trees. It is thought that, in addition to exuding onto the surface of the tree, amber resin also originally flowed into hollow cavities or cracks within trees, thereby leading to
3151-450: A view to their role in human life. Pliny devotes a number of the books to plants, with a focus on their medicinal value; the books on minerals include descriptions of their uses in architecture , sculpture , art , and jewellery . Pliny's premise is distinct from modern ecological theories, reflecting the prevailing sentiment of his time. Pliny's work frequently reflects Rome's imperial expansion, which brought new and exciting things to
3288-504: Is Highgate copalite . The oldest amber recovered dates to the late Carboniferous period ( 320 million years ago ). Its chemical composition makes it difficult to match the amber to its producers – it is most similar to the resins produced by flowering plants; however, the first flowering plants appeared in the Early Cretaceous, about 200 million years after the oldest amber known to date, and they were not common until
3425-521: Is Marcus Terentius Varro . In the geographical books, Varro is supplemented by the topographical commentaries of Agrippa , which were completed by the emperor Augustus ; for his zoology , he relies largely on Aristotle and on Juba , the scholarly Mauretanian king, studiorum claritate memorabilior quam regno (v. 16). Juba is one of his principal guides in botany; Theophrastus is also named in his Indices, and Pliny had translated Theophrastus's Greek into Latin. Another work by Theophrastus, On Stones
3562-483: Is a Latin work by Pliny the Elder . The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the Natural History compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite the work's title, its subject area is not limited to what is today understood by natural history ; Pliny himself defines his scope as "the natural world, or life". It is encyclopedic in scope, but its structure
3699-463: Is a macromolecule formed by free radical polymerization of several precursors in the labdane family, for example, communic acid , communol , and biformene . These labdanes are diterpenes (C 20 H 32 ) and trienes, equipping the organic skeleton with three alkene groups for polymerization . As amber matures over the years, more polymerization takes place as well as isomerization reactions, crosslinking and cyclization . Most amber has
3836-449: Is a notable example of how knowledge encoded by the fossil record continues to contribute otherwise unattainable information on the emergence and development of life on Earth. For example, the research suggests Markuelia has closest affinity to priapulid worms, and is adjacent to the evolutionary branching of Priapulida , Nematoda and Arthropoda . Despite significant advances in uncovering and identifying paleontological specimens, it
3973-470: Is also called resinite , and the term ambrite is applied to that found specifically within New Zealand coal seams. The English word amber derives from Arabic ʿanbar عنبر (ultimately from Middle Persian ambar ) via Middle Latin ambar and Middle French ambre . The word referred to what is now known as ambergris ( ambre gris or "gray amber"), a solid waxy substance derived from
4110-409: Is as yet impossible, since no amber with fossilized mosquitoes has ever yielded preserved blood. Amber is, however, conducive to preserving DNA , since it dehydrates and thus stabilizes organisms trapped inside. One projection in 1999 estimated that DNA trapped in amber could last up to 100 million years, far beyond most estimates of around 1 million years in the most ideal conditions, although
4247-454: Is encyclopaedic in scope, but its format is unlike a modern encyclopaedia . However, it does have structure: Pliny uses Aristotle's division of nature (animal, vegetable, mineral) to recreate the natural world in literary form. Rather than presenting compartmentalised, stand-alone entries arranged alphabetically, Pliny's ordered natural landscape is a coherent whole, offering the reader a guided tour: "a brief excursion under our direction among
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4384-599: Is even an ammonite Puzosia (Bhimaites) and marine gastropods found in Burmese amber . The preservation of prehistoric organisms in amber forms a key plot point in Michael Crichton 's 1990 novel Jurassic Park and the 1993 movie adaptation by Steven Spielberg . In the story, scientists are able to extract the preserved blood of dinosaurs from prehistoric mosquitoes trapped in amber, from which they genetically clone living dinosaurs. Scientifically this
4521-479: Is generally accepted that the fossil record is vastly incomplete. Approaches for measuring the completeness of the fossil record have been developed for numerous subsets of species, including those grouped taxonomically, temporally, environmentally/geographically, or in sum. This encompasses the subfield of taphonomy and the study of biases in the paleontological record. Paleontology seeks to map out how life evolved across geologic time. A substantial hurdle
4658-539: Is handled in Books XII to XVIII, with Theophrastus as one of Pliny's sources. The manufacture of papyrus and the various grades of papyrus available to Romans are described. Different types of trees and the properties of their wood are explained in Books XII to XIII. The vine, viticulture and varieties of grape are discussed in Book XIV, while Book XV covers the olive tree in detail, followed by other trees including
4795-432: Is human life in a natural landscape. After an initial survey of cosmology and geography , Pliny starts his treatment of animals with the human race, "for whose sake great Nature appears to have created all other things". This teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History . The components of nature are not just described in and for themselves, but also with
4932-657: Is known as the fossil record . Though the fossil record is incomplete, numerous studies have demonstrated that there is enough information available to give a good understanding of the pattern of diversification of life on Earth. In addition, the record can predict and fill gaps such as the discovery of Tiktaalik in the arctic of Canada . Paleontology includes the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are usually considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are around 3.48 billion years to 4.1 billion years old. The observation in
5069-443: Is mainly based on enantio -labdatrienonic acids, such as ozic and zanzibaric acids. Its most familiar representative is Dominican amber,. which is mostly transparent and often contains a higher number of fossil inclusions. This has enabled the detailed reconstruction of the ecosystem of a long-vanished tropical forest. Resin from the extinct species Hymenaea protera is the source of Dominican amber and probably of most amber found in
5206-542: Is mined illegally by organised crime groups, who deforest the surrounding areas and pump water into the sediments to extract the amber, causing severe environmental deterioration. The Vienna amber factories, which use pale amber to manufacture pipes and other smoking tools, turn it on a lathe and polish it with whitening and water or with rotten stone and oil. The final luster is given by polishing with flannel. When gradually heated in an oil bath, amber "becomes soft and flexible. Two pieces of amber may be united by smearing
5343-623: Is mined through bell pitting , which is dangerous because of the risk of tunnel collapse. An important source of amber is Kachin State in northern Myanmar , which has been a major source of amber in China for at least 1,800 years. Contemporary mining of this deposit has attracted attention for unsafe working conditions and its role in funding internal conflict in the country . Amber from the Rivne Oblast of Ukraine, referred to as Rivne amber ,
5480-774: Is not like that of a modern encyclopedia . It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published. He published the first 10 books in AD 77, but had not made a final revision of the remainder at the time of his death during the AD ;79 eruption of Vesuvius . The rest was published posthumously by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger . The work is divided into 37 books, organised into 10 volumes. These cover topics including astronomy , mathematics , geography , ethnography , anthropology , human physiology , zoology , botany , agriculture , horticulture , pharmacology , mining , mineralogy , sculpture , art , and precious stones . Pliny's Natural History became
5617-619: Is rare and highly sought after. Yellow amber is a hard fossil resin from evergreen trees, and despite the name it can be translucent, yellow, orange, or brown colored. Known to the Iranians by the Pahlavi compound word kah-ruba (from kah "straw" plus rubay "attract, snatch", referring to its electrical properties), which entered Arabic as kahraba' or kahraba (which later became the Arabic word for electricity , كهرباء kahrabā ' ), it too
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5754-438: Is replete with the mollusks , the vertebrates , the echinoderms , the brachiopods and some groups of arthropods . Fossil sites with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues—are known as Lagerstätten —German for "storage places". These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus slowing decomposition. Lagerstätten span geological time from
5891-623: Is roughly 125–135 million years old, is considered of high scientific value, providing evidence of some of the oldest sampled ecosystems. In Lebanon, more than 450 outcrops of Lower Cretaceous amber were discovered by Dany Azar, a Lebanese paleontologist and entomologist. Among these outcrops, 20 have yielded biological inclusions comprising the oldest representatives of several recent families of terrestrial arthropods. Even older Jurassic amber has been found recently in Lebanon as well. Many remarkable insects and spiders were recently discovered in
6028-406: Is sometimes colored artificially but also called "true amber". Amber occurs in a range of different colors. As well as the usual yellow-orange-brown that is associated with the color "amber", amber can range from a whitish color through a pale lemon yellow, to brown and almost black. Other uncommon colors include red amber (sometimes known as "cherry amber"), green amber, and even blue amber , which
6165-470: Is the difficulty of working out fossil ages. Beds that preserve fossils typically lack the radioactive elements needed for radiometric dating . This technique is our only means of giving rocks greater than about 50 million years old an absolute age, and can be accurate to within 0.5% or better. Although radiometric dating requires careful laboratory work, its basic principle is simple: the rates at which various radioactive elements decay are known, and so
6302-413: Is the science of deciphering the "layer-cake" that is the sedimentary record. Rocks normally form relatively horizontal layers, with each layer younger than the one underneath it. If a fossil is found between two layers whose ages are known, the fossil's age is claimed to lie between the two known ages. Because rock sequences are not continuous, but may be broken up by faults or periods of erosion , it
6439-431: Is to be watchful", in a military metaphor of a sentry keeping watch in the night. Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such a work, in his prayer for the blessing of the universal mother: Hail to thee, Nature, thou parent of all things! and do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, thus made known thy praise. The Natural History
6576-467: Is very difficult to match up rock beds that are not directly adjacent. However, fossils of species that survived for a relatively short time can be used to match isolated rocks: this technique is called biostratigraphy . For instance, the conodont Eoplacognathus pseudoplanus has a short range in the Middle Ordovician period. If rocks of unknown age have traces of E. pseudoplanus , they have
6713-801: The Cambrian period to the present . Worldwide, some of the best examples of near-perfect fossilization are the Cambrian Maotianshan Shales and Burgess Shale , the Devonian Hunsrück Slates , the Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone , and the Carboniferous Mazon Creek localities. A fossil is said to be recrystallized when the original skeletal compounds are still present but in a different crystal form, such as from aragonite to calcite . Replacement occurs when
6850-555: The Defloratio Historiae Naturalis Plinii Secundi consisting of nine books of selections taken from an ancient manuscript. There are three independent classes of the stemma of the surviving Historia Naturalis manuscripts. These are divided into: The textual tradition /stemma was established by the German scholars J. Sillig , D. Detlefsen, L. von Jan, and K. Rück in the 19th century. Two Teubner Editions were published of 5 volumes;
6987-511: The Festival of Vulcan , not for luck but from his love of study, long before dawn; in winter he would commence at the seventh hour... He could sleep at call, and it would come upon him and leave him in the middle of his work. Before daybreak he would go to Vespasian – for he too was a night-worker – and then set about his official duties. On his return home he would again give to study any time that he had free. Often in summer after taking
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#17327722256637124-863: The Late Cretaceous . Amber becomes abundant long after the Carboniferous, in the Early Cretaceous , when it is found in association with insects. The oldest amber with arthropod inclusions comes from the Late Triassic (late Carnian c. 230 Ma) of Italy, where four microscopic (0.2–0.1 mm) mites, Triasacarus , Ampezzoa , Minyacarus and Cheirolepidoptus , and a poorly preserved nematoceran fly were found in millimetre-sized droplets of amber. The oldest amber with significant numbers of arthropod inclusions comes from Lebanon. This amber, referred to as Lebanese amber ,
7261-586: The Phacops fossil record was that the aftermaths of the lens changes, but not the rapidly occurring evolutionary process, were fossilized. This and other data led Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge to publish their seminal paper on punctuated equilibrium in 1971. Synchrotron X-ray tomographic analysis of early Cambrian bilaterian embryonic microfossils yielded new insights of metazoan evolution at its earliest stages. The tomography technique provides previously unattainable three-dimensional resolution at
7398-569: The Renaissance . Leonardo da Vinci concurred with Aristotle's view that fossils were the remains of ancient life. For example, Leonardo noticed discrepancies with the biblical flood narrative as an explanation for fossil origins: If the Deluge had carried the shells for distances of three and four hundred miles from the sea it would have carried them mixed with various other natural objects all heaped up together; but even at such distances from
7535-578: The Silver Age . His sentence structure is often loose and straggling. There is heavy use of the ablative absolute , and ablative phrases are often appended in a kind of vague "apposition" to express the author's own opinion of an immediately previous statement, e.g., dixit (Apelles) ... uno se praestare, quod manum de tabula sciret tollere, memorabili praecepto nocere saepe nimiam diligentiam. This might be translated In one thing Apelles stood out, namely, knowing when he had put enough work into
7672-602: The Song dynasty during the 11th century, who kept a specific seashell fossil with his own poem engraved on it. In his Dream Pool Essays published in 1088, Song dynasty Chinese scholar-official Shen Kuo hypothesized that marine fossils found in a geological stratum of mountains located hundreds of miles from the Pacific Ocean was evidence that a prehistoric seashore had once existed there and shifted over centuries of time . His observation of petrified bamboos in
7809-575: The USSR in 1946, becoming the Kaliningrad Oblast . Pieces of amber torn from the seafloor are cast up by the waves and collected by hand, dredging, or diving. Elsewhere, amber is mined, both in open works and underground galleries. Then nodules of blue earth have to be removed and an opaque crust must be cleaned off, which can be done in revolving barrels containing sand and water. Erosion removes this crust from sea-worn amber. Dominican amber
7946-402: The law of superposition ) preserved different assemblages of fossils, and that these assemblages succeeded one another in a regular and determinable order. He observed that rocks from distant locations could be correlated based on the fossils they contained. He termed this the principle of faunal succession . This principle became one of Darwin's chief pieces of evidence that biological evolution
8083-581: The sperm whale . The word, in its sense of "ambergris," was adopted in Middle English in the 14th century. In the Romance languages , the sense of the word was extended to Baltic amber (fossil resin) from as early as the late 13th century. At first called white or yellow amber ( ambre jaune ), this meaning was adopted in English by the early 15th century. As the use of ambergris waned, this became
8220-403: The thunderbird . There is no such direct mythological connection known from prehistoric Africa, but there is considerable evidence of tribes there excavating and moving fossils to ceremonial sites, apparently treating them with some reverence. In Japan, fossil shark teeth were associated with the mythical tengu , thought to be the razor-sharp claws of the creature, documented some time after
8357-401: The 16th century. Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote of " tongue stones ", which he called glossopetra . These were fossil shark teeth, thought by some classical cultures to look like the tongues of people or snakes. He also wrote about the horns of Ammon , which are fossil ammonites , whence the group of shelled octopus-cousins ultimately draws its modern name. Pliny also makes one of
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#17327722256638494-757: The 18th century, thus modern German Bernstein besides Dutch barnsteen . In the Baltic languages , the Lithuanian term for amber is gintaras and the Latvian dzintars . These words, and the Slavic jantar and Hungarian gyanta ('resin'), are thought to originate from Phoenician jainitar ("sea-resin"). A number of regional and varietal names have been applied to ambers over the centuries, including Allingite , Beckerite , Gedanite , Kochenite , Krantzite , and Stantienite . Theophrastus discussed amber in
8631-739: The 19th century that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led to the recognition of a geological timescale and the relative ages of different fossils. The development of radiometric dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed scientists to quantitatively measure the absolute ages of rocks and the fossils they host. There are many processes that lead to fossilization , including permineralization , casts and molds, authigenic mineralization , replacement and recrystallization, adpression, carbonization , and bioimmuration. Fossils vary in size from one- micrometre (1 μm) bacteria to dinosaurs and trees, many meters long and weighing many tons. A fossil normally preserves only
8768-581: The 4th century BCE, as did Pytheas ( c. 330 BCE ), whose work "On the Ocean" is lost, but was referenced by Pliny, according to whose Natural History : Pytheas says that the Gutones , a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia; that, at one day's sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus , upon
8905-413: The 8th century AD. In medieval China, the fossil bones of ancient mammals including Homo erectus were often mistaken for " dragon bones" and used as medicine and aphrodisiacs . In addition, some of these fossil bones are collected as "art" by scholars, who left scripts on various artifacts, indicating the time they were added to a collection. One good example is the famous scholar Huang Tingjian of
9042-612: The Germans exported amber to Pannonia , from where the Veneti distributed it onwards. The ancient Italic peoples of southern Italy used to work amber; the National Archaeological Museum of Siritide (Museo Archeologico Nazionale della Siritide) at Policoro in the province of Matera ( Basilicata ) displays important surviving examples. It has been suggested that amber used in antiquity, as at Mycenae and in
9179-558: The Moon is 230,000 miles away. He describes comets , noting that only Aristotle has recorded seeing more than one at once. Book II continues with natural meteorological events lower in the sky, including the winds, weather, whirlwinds, lightning, and rainbows. He returns to astronomical facts such as the effect of longitude on time of sunrise and sunset, the variation of the Sun's elevation with latitude (affecting time-telling by sundials), and
9316-615: The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life , the oldest animal fossils were those from the Cambrian Period, now known to be about 540 million years old. He worried about the absence of older fossils because of the implications on the validity of his theories, but he expressed hope that such fossils would be found, noting that: "only a small portion of the world is known with accuracy." Darwin also pondered
9453-566: The Proterozoic and deeper still in the Archean is only "recounted by microscopic fossils and subtle chemical signals." Molecular biologists, using phylogenetics , can compare protein amino acid or nucleotide sequence homology (i.e., similarity) to evaluate taxonomy and evolutionary distances among organisms, with limited statistical confidence. The study of fossils, on the other hand, can more specifically pinpoint when and in what organism
9590-641: The Younger , and this verdict largely explains the appeal of the Natural History since Pliny's death in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 . Pliny had gone to investigate the strange cloud – "shaped like an umbrella pine", according to his nephew – rising from the mountain. The Natural History was one of the first ancient European texts to be printed, in Venice in 1469. Philemon Holland 's English translation of 1601 has influenced literature ever since. The Natural History consists of 37 books. Pliny devised
9727-531: The Younger, who, when telling the story of a tame dolphin and describing the floating islands of the Vadimonian Lake thirty years later, has apparently forgotten that both are to be found in his uncle's work. He describes the Naturalis Historia as a Naturae historia and characterises it as a "work that is learned and full of matter, and as varied as nature herself." The absence of
9864-502: The amber of Jordan including the oldest zorapterans , clerid beetles , umenocoleid roaches , and achiliid planthoppers . Burmese amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar is the only commercially exploited Cretaceous amber. Uranium–lead dating of zircon crystals associated with the deposit have given an estimated depositional age of approximately 99 million years ago. Over 1,300 species have been described from
10001-461: The amber to have an unexpected color. Pyrites may give a bluish color. Bony amber owes its cloudy opacity to numerous tiny bubbles inside the resin. However, so-called black amber is really a kind of jet . In darkly clouded and even opaque amber, inclusions can be imaged using high-energy, high-contrast, high-resolution X-rays . Amber is globally distributed in or around all continents, mainly in rocks of Cretaceous age or younger. Historically,
10138-463: The amber while the resin was yet fresh, suggesting relations with the flora of eastern Asia and the southern part of North America. Heinrich Göppert named the common amber-yielding pine of the Baltic forests Pinites succiniter , but as the wood does not seem to differ from that of the existing genus it has been also called Pinus succinifera . It is improbable that the production of amber was limited to
10275-530: The amber, with over 300 in 2019 alone. Baltic amber is found as irregular nodules in marine glauconitic sand, known as blue earth , occurring in Upper Eocene strata of Sambia in Prussia. It appears to have been partly derived from older Eocene deposits and it occurs also as a derivative phase in later formations, such as glacial drift . Relics of an abundant flora occur as inclusions trapped within
10412-410: The author's final revision may explain many errors, including why the text is as John Healy writes "disjointed, discontinuous and not in a logical order"; and as early as 1350, Petrarch complained about the corrupt state of the text, referring to copying errors made between the ninth and eleventh centuries. About the middle of the 3rd century, an abstract of the geographical portions of Pliny's work
10549-413: The beach, indicating the fossils were once living animals. He had previously explained them in terms of vaporous exhalations , which Persian polymath Avicenna modified into the theory of petrifying fluids ( succus lapidificatus ). Recognition of fossil seashells as originating in the sea was built upon in the 14th century by Albert of Saxony , and accepted in some form by most naturalists by
10686-714: The beginning of recorded history. The fossils themselves are referred to as the fossil record. The fossil record was one of the early sources of data underlying the study of evolution and continues to be relevant to the history of life on Earth . Paleontologists examine the fossil record to understand the process of evolution and the way particular species have evolved. Fossils have been visible and common throughout most of natural history, and so documented human interaction with them goes back as far as recorded history, or earlier. There are many examples of paleolithic stone knives in Europe, with fossil echinoderms set precisely at
10823-541: The capital: exotic eastern spices, strange animals to be put on display or herded into the arena, even the alleged phoenix sent to the emperor Claudius in AD 47 – although, as Pliny admits, this was generally acknowledged to be a fake. Pliny repeated Aristotle's maxim that Africa was always producing something new. Nature's variety and versatility were claimed to be infinite: "When I have observed nature she has always induced me to deem no statement about her incredible." This led Pliny to recount rumours of strange peoples on
10960-437: The cherry, and resin from the ordinary pine. It is a liquid at first, which issues forth in considerable quantities, and is gradually hardened [...] Our forefathers, too, were of opinion that it is the juice of a tree, and for this reason gave it the name of "succinum" and one great proof that it is the produce of a tree of the pine genus, is the fact that it emits a pine-like smell when rubbed, and that it burns, when ignited, with
11097-619: The coast west of Königsberg in Prussia was the world's leading source of amber. The first mentions of amber deposits there date back to the 12th century. Juodkrantė in Lithuania was established in the mid-19th century as a mining town of amber. About 90% of the world's extractable amber is still located in that area, which was transferred to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of
11234-670: The deity Sopdu , the Morning Star, equivalent of Venus in Roman mythology. Fossils appear to have directly contributed to the mythology of many civilizations, including the ancient Greeks. Classical Greek historian Herodotos wrote of an area near Hyperborea where gryphons protected golden treasure. There was indeed gold mining in that approximate region , where beaked Protoceratops skulls were common as fossils. A later Greek scholar, Aristotle , eventually realized that fossil seashells from rocks were similar to those found on
11371-451: The development of large lumps of amber of irregular form. Amber can be classified into several forms. Most fundamentally, there are two types of plant resin with the potential for fossilization. Terpenoids , produced by conifers and angiosperms , consist of ring structures formed of isoprene (C 5 H 8 ) units. Phenolic resins are today only produced by angiosperms, and tend to serve functional uses. The extinct medullosans produced
11508-466: The dry northern climate zone of what is now Yan'an , Shaanxi province, China, led him to advance early ideas of gradual climate change due to bamboo naturally growing in wetter climate areas. In medieval Christendom , fossilized sea creatures on mountainsides were seen as proof of the biblical deluge of Noah's Ark . After observing the existence of seashells in mountains, the ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes (c. 570 – 478 BC) speculated that
11645-415: The earlier known references to toadstones , thought until the 18th century to be a magical cure for poison originating in the heads of toads, but which are fossil teeth from Lepidotes , a Cretaceous ray-finned fish. The Plains tribes of North America are thought to have similarly associated fossils, such as the many intact pterosaur fossils naturally exposed in the region, with their own mythology of
11782-550: The earliest known stromatolites are over 3.4 billion years old. The fossil record is life's evolutionary epic that unfolded over four billion years as environmental conditions and genetic potential interacted in accordance with natural selection. The Virtual Fossil Museum Paleontology has joined with evolutionary biology to share the interdisciplinary task of outlining the tree of life, which inevitably leads backwards in time to Precambrian microscopic life when cell structure and functions evolved. Earth's deep time in
11919-464: The earth during earthquake and subsidences, and petrifies whatever comes into contact with it. As a matter of fact, the petrifaction of the bodies of plants and animals is not more extraordinary than the transformation of waters. From the 13th century to the present day, scholars pointed out that the fossil skulls of Deinotherium giganteum , found in Crete and Greece, might have been interpreted as being
12056-580: The edges of the world. These monstrous races – the Cynocephali or Dog-Heads, the Sciapodae , whose single foot could act as a sunshade, the mouthless Astomi , who lived on scents – were not strictly new. They had been mentioned in the fifth century BC by Greek historian Herodotus (whose history was a broad mixture of myths , legends , and facts), but Pliny made them better known. "As full of variety as nature itself", stated Pliny's nephew, Pliny
12193-478: The existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some kind of catastrophe. Interest in fossils, and geology more generally, expanded during the early nineteenth century. In Britain, Mary Anning 's discoveries of fossils, including the first complete ichthyosaur and a complete plesiosaurus skeleton, sparked both public and scholarly interest. Early naturalists well understood the similarities and differences of living species leading Linnaeus to develop
12330-401: The family Sciadopityaceae that once lived in north Europe. The abnormal development of resin in living trees ( succinosis ) can result in the formation of amber. Impurities are quite often present, especially when the resin has dropped onto the ground, so the material may be useless except for varnish-making. Such impure amber is called firniss . Such inclusion of other substances can cause
12467-492: The first by L. von Jan (1856-78; see external links ) and the second by C. Mayhoff (1892-1906). The most recent critical editions were published by Les Belle Letters (1950-). All 5th century: Definite descendants of E (Paris lat. 6795): Possible descendants of E: Copies of E: Cousin of E: Independent earlier tradition: The work was one of the first classical manuscripts to be printed , at Venice in 1469 by Johann and Wendelin of Speyer , but J.F. Healy described
12604-464: The greatness of Julius Caesar , outstanding people such as Hippocrates and Asclepiades , happiness and fortune. Zoology is discussed in Books VIII to XI. The encyclopedia mentions different sources of purple dye, particularly the murex snail, the highly prized source of Tyrian purple . It describes the elephant and hippopotamus in detail, as well as the value and origin of the pearl and
12741-519: The hand grip, dating back to Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals . These ancient peoples also drilled holes through the center of those round fossil shells, apparently using them as beads for necklaces. The ancient Egyptians gathered fossils of species that resembled the bones of modern species they worshipped. The god Set was associated with the hippopotamus , therefore fossilized bones of hippo-like species were kept in that deity's temples. Five-rayed fossil sea urchin shells were associated with
12878-419: The invention of fish farming and oyster farming . The keeping of aquariums was a popular pastime of the rich, and Pliny provides anecdotes of the problems of owners becoming too closely attached to their fish. Pliny correctly identifies the origin of amber as the fossilised resin of pine trees. Evidence cited includes the fact that some samples exhibit encapsulated insects, a feature readily explained by
13015-535: The limits of fossilization. Fossils of two enigmatic bilaterians, the worm-like Markuelia and a putative, primitive protostome , Pseudooides , provide a peek at germ layer embryonic development. These 543-million-year-old embryos support the emergence of some aspects of arthropod development earlier than previously thought in the late Proterozoic. The preserved embryos from China and Siberia underwent rapid diagenetic phosphatization resulting in exquisite preservation, including cell structures. This research
13152-406: The main sense of the word. The two substances ("yellow amber" and "gray amber") conceivably became associated or confused because they both were found washed up on beaches. Ambergris is less dense than water and floats, whereas amber is too dense to float, though less dense than stone. The classical names for amber, Latin electrum and Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον ( ēlektron ), are connected to
13289-481: The manufacture of jewelry and ornaments, and also in folk medicine . Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin fossilis , lit. ' obtained by digging ' ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age . Examples include bones , shells , exoskeletons , stone imprints of animals or microbes , objects preserved in amber , hair , petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils
13426-526: The means of one's own achievements." In the preface, the author claims to have stated 20,000 facts gathered from some 2,000 books and from 100 select authors. The extant lists of his authorities cover more than 400, including 146 Roman and 327 Greek and other sources of information. The lists generally follow the order of the subject matter of each book. This has been shown in Heinrich Brunn 's Disputatio ( Bonn , 1856). One of Pliny's authorities
13563-412: The most highly prized amber is transparent, in contrast to the very common cloudy amber and opaque amber. Opaque amber contains numerous minute bubbles. This kind of amber is known as "bony amber". Although all Dominican amber is fluorescent, the rarest Dominican amber is blue amber. It turns blue in natural sunlight and any other partially or wholly ultraviolet light source. In long-wave UV light it has
13700-555: The odour and appearance of torch-pine wood. He also states that amber is also found in Egypt and India, and he even refers to the electrostatic properties of amber, by saying that "in Syria the women make the whorls of their spindles of this substance, and give it the name of harpax [from ἁρπάζω, "to drag"] from the circumstance that it attracts leaves towards it, chaff, and the light fringe of tissues". The Romans traded for amber from
13837-542: The prehistory of the Mediterranean, came from deposits in Sicily . Pliny also cites the opinion of Nicias ( c. 470–413 BCE), according to whom amber is a liquid produced by the rays of the sun; and that these rays, at the moment of the sun's setting, striking with the greatest force upon the surface of the soil, leave upon it an unctuous sweat, which is carried off by the tides of the Ocean, and thrown up upon
13974-413: The presence of a viscous resin. Pliny refers to the way in which it exerts a charge when rubbed, a property well known to Theophrastus. He devotes considerable space to bees , which he admires for their industry, organisation, and honey , discussing the significance of the queen bee and the use of smoke by beekeepers at the hive to collect honeycomb . He praises the song of the nightingale . Botany
14111-529: The presence of amber, the island could have been Heligoland , Zealand , the shores of Gdańsk Bay , the Sambia Peninsula or the Curonian Lagoon , which were historically the richest sources of amber in northern Europe. It is assumed that there were well-established trade routes for amber connecting the Baltic with the Mediterranean (known as the " Amber Road "). Pliny states explicitly that
14248-545: The problems involved in matching rocks of the same age across continents . Family-tree relationships also help to narrow down the date when lineages first appeared. For instance, if fossils of B or C date to X million years ago and the calculated "family tree" says A was an ancestor of B and C, then A must have evolved earlier. It is also possible to estimate how long ago two living clades diverged, in other words approximately how long ago their last common ancestor must have lived, by assuming that DNA mutations accumulate at
14385-443: The ratio of the radioactive element to its decay products shows how long ago the radioactive element was incorporated into the rock. Radioactive elements are common only in rocks with a volcanic origin, and so the only fossil-bearing rocks that can be dated radiometrically are volcanic ash layers, which may provide termini for the intervening sediments. Consequently, palaeontologists rely on stratigraphy to date fossils. Stratigraphy
14522-541: The reader pronounced a word wrongly, checked him and made him read it again, and my uncle said to him, "Did you not catch the meaning?" When his friend said "yes," he remarked, "Why then did you make him turn back? We have lost more than ten lines through your interruption." So jealous was he of every moment lost. Pliny's writing style emulates that of Seneca . It aims less at clarity and vividness than at epigrammatic point. It contains many antitheses , questions, exclamations, tropes , metaphors , and other mannerisms of
14659-462: The relative ages of rock strata as determined by the early paleontologists and stratigraphers . Since the early years of the twentieth century, absolute dating methods, such as radiometric dating (including potassium/argon , argon/argon , uranium series , and, for very recent fossils, radiocarbon dating ) have been used to verify the relative ages obtained by fossils and to provide absolute ages for many fossils. Radiometric dating has shown that
14796-403: The resin first into copal . Sustained heat and pressure drives off terpenes and results in the formation of amber. For this to happen, the resin must be resistant to decay. Many trees produce resin, but in the majority of cases this deposit is broken down by physical and biological processes. Exposure to sunlight, rain, microorganisms, and extreme temperatures tends to disintegrate the resin. For
14933-464: The resin producer. Amber sometimes contains animals or plant matter that became caught in the resin as it was secreted. Insects , spiders and even their webs, annelids , frogs , crustaceans , bacteria and amoebae , marine microfossils, wood, flowers and fruit, hair, feathers and other small organisms have been recovered in Cretaceous ambers (deposited c. 130 million years ago ). There
15070-529: The resin to survive long enough to become amber, it must be resistant to such forces or be produced under conditions that exclude them. Fossil resins from Europe fall into two categories, the Baltic ambers and another that resembles the Agathis group. Fossil resins from the Americas and Africa are closely related to the modern genus Hymenaea , while Baltic ambers are thought to be fossil resins from plants of
15207-429: The sea and that they were still living when the strait of Gibraltar was cut through. In the mountains of Parma and Piacenza multitudes of shells and corals with holes may be seen still sticking to the rocks.... In 1666, Nicholas Steno examined a shark, and made the association of its teeth with the "tongue stones" of ancient Greco-Roman mythology, concluding that those were not in fact the tongues of venomous snakes, but
15344-423: The sea we see the oysters all together and also the shellfish and the cuttlefish and all the other shells which congregate together, found all together dead; and the solitary shells are found apart from one another as we see them every day on the sea-shores. And we find oysters together in very large families, among which some may be seen with their shells still joined together, indicating that they were left there by
15481-528: The shell, bone, or other tissue is replaced with another mineral. In some cases mineral replacement of the original shell occurs so gradually and at such fine scales that microstructural features are preserved despite the total loss of original material. Scientists can use such fossils when researching the anatomical structure of ancient species. Several species of saurids have been identified from mineralized dinosaur fossils. Natural History (Pliny) The Natural History ( Latin : Naturalis Historia )
15618-414: The shores of Germany. Besides the fanciful explanations according to which amber is "produced by the Sun", Pliny cites opinions that are well aware of its origin in tree resin, citing the native Latin name of succinum ( sūcinum , from sucus "juice"). In Book 37, section XI of Natural History , Pliny wrote: Amber is produced from a marrow discharged by trees belonging to the pine genus, like gum from
15755-686: The shores of the southern Baltic at least as far back as the time of Nero . Amber has a long history of use in China, with the first written record from 200 BCE. Early in the 19th century, the first reports of amber found in North America came from discoveries in New Jersey along Crosswicks Creek near Trenton , at Camden , and near Woodbury . Amber is heterogeneous in composition, but consists of several resinous bodies more or less soluble in alcohol , ether and chloroform , associated with an insoluble bituminous substance. Amber
15892-647: The shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbors, the Teutones . Earlier Pliny says that Pytheas refers to a large island—three days' sail from the Scythian coast and called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus (author of a fanciful travel book in Greek)—as Basilia —a name generally equated with Abalus . Given
16029-586: The skulls of the Cyclopes of Greek mythology , and are possibly the origin of that Greek myth. Their skulls appear to have a single eye-hole in the front, just like their modern elephant cousins, though in fact it's actually the opening for their trunk. In Norse mythology , echinoderm shells (the round five-part button left over from a sea urchin) were associated with the god Thor , not only being incorporated in thunderstones , representations of Thor's hammer and subsequent hammer-shaped crosses as Christianity
16166-436: The subject. Pliny studied the original authorities on each subject and took care to make excerpts from their pages. His indices auctorum sometimes list the authorities he actually consulted, though not exhaustively; in other cases, they cover the principal writers on the subject, whose names are borrowed second-hand from his immediate authorities. He acknowledges his obligations to his predecessors: "To own up to those who were
16303-467: The sudden appearance of many groups (i.e. phyla ) in the oldest known Cambrian fossiliferous strata. Since Darwin's time, the fossil record has been extended to between 2.3 and 3.5 billion years. Most of these Precambrian fossils are microscopic bacteria or microfossils . However, macroscopic fossils are now known from the late Proterozoic. The Ediacara biota (also called Vendian biota) dating from 575 million years ago collectively constitutes
16440-417: The surfaces with linseed oil, heating them, and then pressing them together while hot. Cloudy amber may be clarified in an oil bath, as the oil fills the numerous pores that cause the turbidity. Small fragments, formerly thrown away or used only for varnish are now used on a large scale in the formation of "ambroid" or "pressed amber". The pieces are carefully heated with exclusion of air and then compressed into
16577-451: The teeth of some long-extinct species of shark. Robert Hooke (1635–1703) included micrographs of fossils in his Micrographia and was among the first to observe fossil forams . His observations on fossils, which he stated to be the petrified remains of creatures some of which no longer existed, were published posthumously in 1705. William Smith (1769–1839) , an English canal engineer, observed that rocks of different ages (based on
16714-503: The translation as "distinctly imperfect". A copy printed in 1472 by Nicolas Jenson of Venice is held in the library at Wells Cathedral . Philemon Holland made an influential translation of much of the work into English in 1601. John Bostock and H. T. Riley made a complete translation in 1855. The Natural History is generally divided into the organic plants and animals and the inorganic matter, although there are frequent digressions in each section. The encyclopedia also notes
16851-469: The tropics. It is not "succinite" but " retinite ". These ambers are formed from resins with a sesquiterpenoid base, such as cadinene . These ambers are polystyrenes . Class IV is something of a catch-all : its ambers are not polymerized, but mainly consist of cedrene -based sesquiterpenoids. Class V resins are considered to be produced by a pine or pine relative. They comprise a mixture of diterpinoid resins and n -alkyl compounds. Their main variety
16988-571: The uses made of all of these by the Romans. Its description of metals and minerals is valued for its detail in the history of science , being the most extensive compilation still available from the ancient world. Book I serves as Pliny's preface, explaining his approach and providing a table of contents. The first topic covered is Astronomy, in Book II. Pliny starts with the known universe, roundly criticising attempts at cosmology as madness, including
17125-657: The variation of day length with latitude. In Books III to VI, Pliny moves to the Earth itself. In Book III he covers the geography of the Iberian peninsula and Italy; Book IV covers Europe; Book V looks at Africa and Asia, while Book VI looks eastwards to the Black Sea, India and the Far East. Book VII discusses the human race, covering anthropology and ethnography , aspects of human physiology and assorted matters such as
17262-541: The view that there are countless other worlds than the Earth. He concurs with the four (Aristotelian) elements, fire, earth, air and water, and records the seven "planets" including the Sun and Moon. The Earth is a sphere, suspended in the middle of space. He considers it a weakness to try to find the shape and form of God, or to suppose that such a being would care about human affairs. He mentions eclipses, but considers Hipparchus 's almanac grandiose for seeming to know how Nature works. He cites Posidonius 's estimate that
17399-445: The way of production. This class is by far the most abundant. It comprises labdatriene carboxylic acids such as communic or ozic acids . It is further split into three sub-classes. Classes Ia and Ib utilize regular labdanoid diterpenes (e.g. communic acid, communol, biformenes), while Ic uses enantio labdanoids (ozic acid, ozol, enantio biformenes). Class Ia includes Succinite (= 'normal' Baltic amber) and Glessite . They have
17536-454: The whole of the works of nature ..." The work is unified but varied: "My subject is the world of nature ... or in other words, life," he tells Titus. Nature for Pliny was divine, a pantheistic concept inspired by the Stoic philosophy , which underlies much of his thought, but the deity in question was a goddess whose main purpose was to serve the human race: "nature, that is life"
17673-502: The world of nature, or in other words life; and that subject in its least elevated department, and employing either rustic terms or foreign, nay barbarian words that actually have to be introduced with an apology. Moreover, the path is not a beaten highway of authorship, nor one in which the mind is eager to range: there is not one of us who has made the same venture, nor yet one among the Greeks who has tackled single-handed all departments of
17810-524: The world was once inundated in a great flood that buried living creatures in drying mud. In 1027, the Persian Avicenna explained fossils' stoniness in The Book of Healing : If what is said concerning the petrifaction of animals and plants is true, the cause of this (phenomenon) is a powerful mineralizing and petrifying virtue which arises in certain stony spots, or emanates suddenly from
17947-642: Was glæsum , "for which reason the Romans, when Germanicus commanded the fleet in those parts, gave to one of these islands the name of Glæsaria, which by the barbarians was known as Austeravia". This is confirmed by the recorded Old High German word glas and by the Old English word glær for "amber" (compare glass ). In Middle Low German , amber was known as berne-, barn-, börnstēn (with etymological roots related to "burn" and to "stone"). The Low German term became dominant also in High German by
18084-458: Was adopted, but also kept in houses to garner Thor's protection. These grew into the shepherd's crowns of English folklore, used for decoration and as good luck charms, placed by the doorway of homes and churches. In Suffolk , a different species was used as a good-luck charm by bakers, who referred to them as fairy loaves , associating them with the similarly shaped loaves of bread they baked. More scientific views of fossils emerged during
18221-625: Was called amber in Europe (Old French and Middle English ambre). Found along the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, yellow amber reached the Middle East and western Europe via trade. Its coastal acquisition may have been one reason yellow amber came to be designated by the same term as ambergris. Moreover, like ambergris, the resin could be burned as an incense. The resin's most popular use was, however, for ornamentation—easily cut and polished, it could be transformed into beautiful jewelry. Much of
18358-600: Was cited as a source on ores and minerals . Pliny strove to use all the Greek histories available to him, such as Herodotus and Thucydides , as well as the Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus . His nephew, Pliny the Younger, described the method that Pliny used to write the Natural History : Does it surprise you that a busy man found time to finish so many volumes, many of which deal with such minute details?... He used to begin to study at night on
18495-421: Was done at night; daytime hours were spent working for the emperor, as he explains in the dedicatory preface addressed to Vespasian's elder son, the future emperor Titus , with whom he had served in the army (and to whom the work is dedicated). As for the nocturnal hours spent writing, these were seen not as a loss of sleep but as an addition to life, for as he states in the preface, Vita vigilia est , "to be alive
18632-467: Was produced by Solinus . Early in the 8th century, Bede , who admired Pliny's work, had access to a partial manuscript which he used in his " De natura rerum ", especially the sections on meteorology and gems . However, Bede updated and corrected Pliny on the tides . There are about 200 extant manuscripts, but the best of the more ancient manuscripts, that at Bamberg State Library , contains only books XXXII–XXXVII. In 1141 Robert of Cricklade wrote
18769-408: Was real. Georges Cuvier came to believe that most if not all the animal fossils he examined were remains of extinct species. This led Cuvier to become an active proponent of the geological school of thought called catastrophism . Near the end of his 1796 paper on living and fossil elephants he said: All of these facts, consistent among themselves, and not opposed by any report, seem to me to prove
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