Fossilized shark's teeth were known as tongue stones in the 17th century.
Fossils were a subject of much debate during the 17th century. In the early 17th century, Archbishop James Ussher used statements from the Bible to calculate the age of the Earth at only 4,004 years old. It was not until the late 18th century that the science of geology progressed to the point where the true age of the earth -- millions and millions of years -- became widely known. Scientists guessed at the origin of fossils, as well as their age, with varying degrees of accuracy.
Devil's Toenails and Tongue Stones
Fossils were found by people since antiquity; even the ancient Greeks wrote about them. Over the centuries, non-scientists came up with a rich folklore of creative explanations for the existence of commonly found fossils. A fossilized oyster was commonly known as the Devil's toenail during the 17th century, and in Scotland it people believed that possessing one of these curved fossils was a cure for arthritis and other ailments of the bones. As well, fossilized shark's teeth were, until the 17th century and beyond, believed to be tongue stones. People thought these stones were an antidote for snake bites, or a ward against the Evil Eye.
Dragon Bones
Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit scholar, tried his hand at explaining the origin of fossils. Kircher believed that the large stone bones unearthed from the ground belonged to dragons. He believed that dragons were still in existence and wrote extensively of stories told to him about dragon sightings. He believed that the basilisk, a winged dragon, hatched from a chicken's egg and incorporated surrounding organic matter into its tissues to build its body and wings. Kircher stated that "there are reports of flying dragons from so many and such reliable witnesses, that anyone, I think, who denies their veracity must be himself completely mad."
Once-Living Organisms
John Ray was a naturalist particularly interested in plant life. He was one of the first scientists to classify organisms based on their overall morphology instead of on select parts of the anatomy. He believed that fossils were the remains of once-living organisms. Ray thought that some marine fossils were found on land because the animals washed up onto shore during the great biblical flood, but that fossils were found in too many geological strata for all fossils to have formed in this way. He also puzzled upon fossils that did not correspond with any known species, suggesting that perhaps they did exist in remote corners of the Earth and its oceans. After receiving an unknown species of fossilized plant, Ray wrote to the sender that perhaps the Earth was older than scripture suggested.
Petrified Wood
Robert Hooke was the first to examine fossils under the microscope and formulated a possible mechanism for the formation of fossils based on his observations. Hooke suggested that exposing a plant to mineral-rich water for a long period of time would cause the minerals to deposit themselves in the microscopic structures of the plant and gradually replace plant tissue with stone. His theory opened the possibility that fossils of unknown species were not formed by geological processes like rocks or crystals, as previously hypothesized, but that fossils were formed from the bodies of plants or animals that once lived but were no longer found on Earth. He suggested that the geography and the organisms found in an ecosystem could change over time.
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