| | Rocky Road: Agostino Scilla (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21) |
 | | These words, written by Agostino Scilla in his 1670 book Vain Speculation Undeceived by Sense stood in defiance of the conclusions of the very influential Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, who believed that some fossils were formed as sports of nature. |
 | | Scilla also uncovered the origin of glossopetrae, as did Niels Stensen a few years earlier. |
 | | Scilla's work came at a time when a few other sharp minds, including those of Stensen, John Ray and Robert Hooke, reached similar conclusions about the organic nature of fossils. |
| www.strangescience.net /scilla.htm (254 words) |