comte de Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon

“ We have before said that, generally speaking, the greatest mountains are in islands and in the projections in the sea. That in the old continent the greatest chains of mountains are directed from west to east, and that those which incline towards the north or south are only branches of these principal chains; we shall likewise find that the greatest rivers are directed as the greatest mountains, and that there are but few which follow the course of the branches of those mountains. To be assured of this, we have only to look on a common globe, and trace the old continent from Spain to China. ”

“ He pretends, that Moses has not given us the history of the first creation of this globe, but only a detail of the new form that it took when the Almighty turned it from the mass of a comet into a planet, and formed it into a proper habitation for men. Comets are, in fact, subjected to terrible vicissitudes by reason of the eccentricity of their orbits. Sometimes, like that in 1680, it is a thousand times hotter there than red-hot iron; and sometimes a thousand times colder than ice; if they are, therefore, inhabited it must be by strange creatures, of which we can have no conception. ”

“ The first object which presents itself is that immense quantity of water which covers the greatest part of the globe; this water always occupies the lowest ground, its surface always level, and constantly tending to equilibrium and rest; nevertheless it is kept in perpetual agitation by a powerful agent, which opposing its natural tranquillity, impresses it with a regular periodical motion, alternately raising and depressing its waves, producing a vibration in the total mass, by disturbing the whole body to the greatest depths. ”

“ There are a prodigious quantity of petrified shells to be met with in an infinity of places, not only inclosed in rocks, masses of marble, lime-stone, as well as in earth and clays, but are actually incorporated and filled with the very substance which surrounds them. In short, I find myself convinced, by repeated observations, [15] that marbles, stones, chalks, marls, clay, sand, and almost all terrestrial substances, wherever they may be placed, are filled with shells and other substances, the productions of the sea. ”

“ By the word sand I always understand vitrifiable sand; and not only comprehend under this denomination the fine sand which produces freestone, and which I look upon as powdered glass, or rather pumice stone, but also the sand which proceeds from the freestone destroyed by friction, and also the larger sand, as small gravel, which proceeds from the granate and rock-stone, and is sharp, angular, red, and commonly found in the bed of rivers or rivulets that derive their waters immediately from the higher mountains, or hills composed of stone or granate. ”

“ From the Creation the sea has constantly been subject to a regular flux and reflux: this motion, which raises and falls the waters twice in every twenty-four hours, is principally occasioned by the action of the moon, and is much greater under the equator than in any other climates. The earth performs a rapid motion on its axis, and consequently has a centrifugal force, which is also the greatest at the equator; this latter, independent of actual observation, proves that the earth is not perfectly spherical, but that it must be more elevated under the equator then at the poles. ”

“ Thus our ocean is a part of the ancient abyss, the rest is entered into the internal cavities with which the ocean communicates. The islands and sea rocks are the small fragments, and continents are the great masses of the old crust. As the rupture and the fall of this crust are made of a sudden, and with confusion, it was not surprising to find eminences, depths, plains, and inequalities of all kinds on the surface of the earth. ”

“ The tail of a comet is the lightest part of its atmosphere; it is a transparent mist, a subtile vapour, which the heat of the sun exhales from the body of the comet: this vapour composed of extremely rarefied aqueous and aerial particles, follows the comet when it descends to its perihelion, and precedes when it re-ascends, so that it is always situate opposite to the sun, as if it sought to be in the shade, and avoid the too great heat of that luminary. ”

“ It is also known that hurricanes are the scourge of the Antilles, Madagascar, and other countries, where they act with such fury, as to sweep away trees, plants, and animals, together with the soil which gave them subsistence: they cause rivers to ascend and descend, and produce new ones; they overthrow rocks and mountains; they make holes and gulphs on the earth, and entirely change the face of those unfortunate countries where they exist. ”

“ There are only Egypt, Barbary, and the western coasts of Africa, as far as Senegal, in this part of the globe, which can be looked upon as modern countries. Asia is an old land, and perhaps the most ancient of all, particularly Arabia, Persia, and Tartary; but the inequalities of this vast part of the globe, as well as those of Europe, we will consider in a separate article. It might be said in general, that Europe is a new country, and such position would be supported both by the universal traditions relative to the emigrations of different people, and the origin of arts and sciences. ”

“ The Red sea is a narrow branch of the ocean, and does not receive into it a single river on the side of Egypt, and very few on the opposite coast; it will not therefore be subject to diminution, like those seas and lakes which are constantly receiving slime and sand from those rivers that flow into them. The [46] ocean supplies the Red sea with all its water, and the motion of the tides is very evident in it, of course it must be affected by every movement of the ocean. But the Mediterranean must be lower than the ocean, because the current passes with great rapidity through the straits ”

“ To affirm as Whiston has done, that the earth was originally a comet, or, with Leibnitz, that it has been a sun, is saying things equally possible or impossible, and to which it would be ridiculous to apply the rules of probability. To say that the sea formerly covered all the earth, that it surrounded the whole globe, and that it is for this reason shells are every where found, is not paying attention to a very essential point, the unity of the time of the creation ”

“ It is not necessary to produce an earthquake on a plain, that the bottom of the volcano should be below the level of that plain; nor that there should be internal cavities filled with the same combustible matter, for a violent explosion, such as generally attends an eruption, may, like that of a powder magazine give so great a shock by its re-action, as to produce an earthquake that might be felt at a considerable distance.
I do not mean to say that there are no earthquakes produced by subterraneous fires, but [55] merely that there are some which proceed only from the explosion of volcanos. ”

“ We may remark that almost all land proper for cultivation is reddish, and more or less mixed with these different matters; the particles of sand or stone found there are of two kinds, the one coarse and heavy, the other fine and sometimes impalpable. The largest comes from the lower strata loosened in cultivating the earth, or rather the upper mould, by penetrating into the lower, which is of sand and other divided matters, and forms those earths we call fat and fertile. The finer sort proceeds from the air, and falls with dew and rain, and mixes intimately with the soil. ”

“ We daily observe the sea gaining ground on some coasts and losing it on others; we know that the ocean has a continued regular motion from East to West; that it makes loud and violent efforts against the low lands and rocks which confine it; that there are whole provinces which human industry can hardly secure from the rage of the sea; that there are instances of islands rising above, and others being sunk under the waters. History speaks of much greater deluges and inundations. ”

“ It is certain, by the number of fossil-shells in the quarries and mountains, that this country, as well as many others, must have formerly been covered with the sea. But how has the American or Indian sea reached thither? To explain this, and many other wonderful phenomena, it may be supposed, with much probability, that the sea originally covered the whole terrestrial globe: but this supposition will not hold good, because how were terrestrial plants to exist? It evidently, therefore, must have been great inundations which have conveyed the plants of one country into the others. ”

“ Without mentioning those who have advanced that the interior part of the globe is entirely filled with water, there are some who believe there are an infinity of floods, rivulets, and lakes in the bowels of the earth. But this opinion does not seem to be properly founded, and it is more probable that the quantity of subterraneous water, which never appears on the surface, is not very considerable; for if these subterraneous rivers are so very numerous, why do we never see any of their mouths forcing their way through the surface? ”

“ What we have just said on the cause of the motion and formation of the satellites, will acquire more probability, if we consider all the circumstances of the phenomena. The planets which turn the swiftest on their axis, are those which have satellites. The earth turns quicker than Mars in the relation of about 24 to 15; the earth has a satellite, but Mars has none. Jupiter, whose rapidity round its axis is five to six hundred times greater than that of the earth, has four satellites, and there is a great appearance that Saturn, which has five, and a ring, turns still more quickly than Jupiter. ”

“ Thus in America, the country of the Amazons, Guiana and Canada will be the most modern parts; by casting our eyes on the map of this country we see the waters on every side, and that they are divided by numberless lakes and rivers, which also indicates that these lands are of a late formation; while on the other hand Peru and Mexico are high mountains, and situate at no great distance from the line that divides the continent, which are circumstances that seem to prove their antiquity. Africa is very [162] mountainous, and that part of the world is also very ancient. ”

“ In large rivers there is a considerable eddy along the banks, which is so much the more considerable as the river is less remote from the sea, which may also serve as a guide to judge whether we are at a great or short distance from the mouth; and as the windings of rivers increase in proportion as they approach the sea, it is not surprising that some of them should give way to the water, and be one reason why great rivers generally divide into many arms before they gain the sea. ”

“ When the wind ceases to blow from the North, and comes in the direction of the Strait, the ice begins to thaw and break in the middle; afterwards it loosens from the sides in great masses, which are carried into the high sea. The wind, which all winter blows from the north over the frozen countries of Nova Zembla, renders the country watered by the Oby, and all Siberia, so cold, that even at Tobolski, which is in the 57th degree, there are no fruit trees, while at Sweden, Stockholm, and even in higher latitudes, there are both fruit trees and pulse. ”

“ But how has it happened that this earth which we and our ancestors have inhabited for ages, which, from time immemorial, has been an immense continent, dry and removed from the reach of the waters, should, if formerly the bottom of the ocean, be actually larger than all the waters, and raised to such a height as to be distinctly separated from them? ”

“ The three systems we have spoken of are not the only works which have been composed on the theory of the earth; a Memoir of M. Bourguet appeared in 1729, printed at Amsterdam, with his "Philosophical Letters on the Formation of Salts, &c." in which he gives a specimen of the system he meditated, but which was prevented completion by the death of the author. It is but justice to admit, that no person was more industrious in making observations or collecting facts. To him we owe that great and beautiful observation, the correspondence between the angles of mountains. ”

“ When a great swell of water happens, the watermen know it by a particular motion; they then say the water at the bottom flows quicker than common: this augmentation of rapidity at the bottom, according to them, [300] always announces a sudden rise of the water. The motion and weight of the upper water communicates this motion to them; for in certain respects we must consider a river as a pillar of water contained in a tube, and the whole channel as a very long canal where every motion must be communicated from one end to the other. ”