Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Flood hypothesis, on the other hand, did not merit consideration because
among the specimens were a ripe apricot and an acorn, suggesting fossil-
ization in the fall, whereas the Flood was thought likely to have occurred
in the spring. It was suggested that the fi gures were the remains from a
pagan culture, but then it became necessary to explain why the pagans
would be writing in Hebrew. Beringer himself noted that the undersides
of the fossils were smooth and featureless; the sculptured upper surfaces
had knife marks and looked as though they had been carved and polished
with pumice. The specimens were all perfectly oriented and fi tted neatly
on the pieces of stone as if they were the work of a sculptor. There was no
compression, and the fossils appeared to be a continuation of the stone.
(Beringer [1726] 1963).
As writing of the
Lithographiae Wircenburgensis
neared completion, ques-
tions about the authenticity of the fossils were circulated by two members
of the Würzburg Academic Society, J. Ignatz Roderick and Georg von Eck-
hart. Beringer suspected Roderick and von Eckhart of perpetrating the cha-
rade in the fi rst place and later brought court proceedings against them,
but initially he could not admit he had been misled and continued with
the publication. Clearly the charade had served its purpose of discrediting
the rather pompous Beringer, and Roderick and von Eckhart were probably
trying to bring it to a close. Although by April 1726 Beringer had fi nally ac-
knowledged that the whole episode was a hoax, it was too late to withdraw
the topic. Despite the farce and humiliation, however, Beringer's name did
not sink into oblivion. Indeed, in 1767, after Beringer's death, a second edi-
tion of the topic that had caused him such great embarrassment was pub-
lished by his heirs and did quite well.
Long before the efforts of some eighteenth-century theologians and sci-
entists to use fossils to document ancient scripture and explain the unfa-
miliar, others had already recognized that fossils were nothing more than
the remains of past life preserved in the rocks of the Earth. Somewhat ironi-
cally, the most prominent of these was Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519),
who painted one of the greatest of religious icons,
The Last Supper
. Unlike
his artistic achievements, Leonardo's extensive scientifi c works, numbering
over 4000 pages, were not cataloged until the 1700s. Even then, they were
diffi cult to read because the writing is in mirror image (right to left) with
cryptic spellings and abbreviations. The scientifi c papers were brought to-
gether in 1717 as the
Codex Leicester
, after their purchase by Thomas Coke,
fi rst Earl of Leicester. Armand Hammer acquired them in 1990 and re-
named them the
Codex Hammer
. They were fi nally purchased in 1994 for
$30.8 million by Bill Gates, who restored the name
Codex Leicester
.
