de l'ntendance_, to whom the Intendant had written on my behalf, at the
request of the Marquis de Chastellux.

I stated to him the fact as advanced by Voltaire, and found he was, of
all men, the best to whom I could have addressed myself. He told me he
had been in correspondence with Voltaire on that very subject, and was
perfectly acquainted with Monsieur de la Sauvagiere, and the Faluniere
where the fact is said to have taken place. It is at the Chateau de
Grillemont, six leagues from Tours, on the road to Bordeaux, belonging
now to Monsieur d'Orcai. He says, that De la Sauvagiere was a man of
truth, and might be relied on for whatever facts he stated as of his
own observation; but that he was overcharged with imagination, which, in
matters of opinion and theory, often led him beyond his facts; that this
feature in his character had appeared principally in what he wrote on
the antiquities of Touraine; but that as to the fact in question,
he believed him. That he himself, indeed, had not watched the same
identical shells, as Sauvagiere had done, growing from small to great;
but that he had often seen such masses of those shells of all sizes,
from a point to a full size, as to carry conviction to his mind that
they were in the act of growing; that he had once made a collection
of shells for the Emperor's cabinet, reserving duplicates of them
for himself; and that these afforded proofs of the same fact; that he
afterwards gave those duplicates to a Monsieur du Verget, a physician
of Tours, of great science and candor, who was collecting on a
larger scale, and who was perfectly in sentiment with Monsieur de la
Sauvagiere, and not only the Faluniere, but many other places about
Tours, would convince any unbiassed observer, that shells are a fruit
of the earth, spontaneously produced; and he gave me a copy of De la
Sauvagiere's _Recueil de Dissertations_, presented him by the author,
wherein is one _Sur la vegetation spontanee des coquilles du Chateau
des Places_. So far, I repeat from him. What are we to conclude? That we
have not materials enough yet, to form any conclusion. The fact stated
by Sauvagiere is not against any law of nature, and is therefore
possible; but it is so little analogous to her habitual processes,
that, if true, it would be extraordinary: that to command our belief,
therefore, there should be such a suite of observations, as that their
untruth would be more extraordinary than the existence of the fa