Buffon's Natural History, Volume I (of 10)

ARTICLE III.

FROM THE SYSTEM OF BURNET.7

This author is the first who has treated this subject generally and in a systematical matter. He was possessed of much understanding, and was a person well acquainted with the belles lettres. His work acquired great reputation, and was criticised by many of the learned, among the rest by Mr. Keil, who has geometrically demonstrated the errors of Mr. Burnet, in a treatise called "Examination of the Theory of the Earth." Mr. Keil also refuted Whiston's system; but he treats the last author very different from the first, and seems even to be of his opinion in several cases, and looks upon the tail of a comet to be a very probable cause for the deluge. But, to return to Burnet, his book is elegantly written; he knew how to paint noble images and magnificent scenes. His plan is great, but the execution is deficient for want of proper materials: his reasoning is good, but his proofs are weak; yet his confidence in his writings is so great, that he frequently causes his readers to pass over his errors.

He begins by telling us, that before the deluge the earth had a very different form from that which it has at present; it was at first, he says, a fluid mass, compounded of matters of all kinds, and all sorts of figures, the heaviest descended towards the centre, and formed a hard and solid body; round which the waters collected, and the air, and all the liquors lighter than water, surmounted them. Between the orb of air and that of water, was an orb of oily matter, but as the air was still very impure, and contained a great quantity of small particles of terrestrial matter, they by degrees descended on the coat of oil, and formed a terrestrial orb blended with earth and oil; and this was the first habitable earth, and the first abode of man. This was an excellent soil, light, and calculated to yield to the tenderness of the first germs. The surface of the terrestrial globe was at first equal, uniform, without mountains, without seas, and without inequalities; but it remained only about sixteen centuries in this state, for the heat of the sun by degrees drying the crust, split it at first on the surface, soon after these cracks penetrated farther and increased so considerably by time, that at length they entirely opened the crust; in an instant the whole earth fell into pieces in the abyss of water it surrounded; and this was the cause of the deluge.

But all these masses of earth, by falling into the abyss, dragged along with them a great quantity of air; these struck against each other, divided, and accumulated so irregularly, that great cavities filled with air were left between them. The waters by degrees opened these cavities, and in proportion as they filled them, the surface of the earth discovered itself in the highest parts; at length water alone remained in the lowest parts; that is to say, the vast vallies which contain the sea. 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.

ARTICLE IV.

FROM THE SYSTEM OF WOODWARD

It may be said of this author, that he attempted to raise an immense monument on a less solid base than the moving sand, and to construct a world with dust; for he pretends, that at the time of the deluge a total dissolution of the earth was made. The first idea which presents, after having gone through his book,8 is, that this dissolution was made by the waters of the great abyss. He asserts, that the abyss where the water was included opened all at once at the command of God, and dispersed over the surface an enormous quantity of water necessary to cover the tops of the highest mountains, and that God suspended the cause of cohesion which reduced all solid bodies into dust, &c. He did not consider that by these suppositions he added other miracles to that of the universal deluge, or at least physical impossibilities, which agree neither with the letter of the holy writ, nor with the mathematical principles of natural philosophy. But as this author has the merit of having collected many important observations, and as he was better acquainted with the materials of which the globe is composed than those who preceded him, his system, although badly conceived, and worse digested, has nevertheless dazzled many people, who, seduced by the truth of some particular circumstances, put confidence in his general conclusions; we shall, therefore, give a short view of his theory, in which, by doing justice to the author's merit, and the exactness of his observations, we shall put the reader in a state of judging of the insufficiency of his system, and of the falsity of some of his remarks. Mr. Woodward speaks of having discovered by his sight that all matters which compose the English earth, from the surface to the deepest places which had been dug, were disposed by beds of strata, and that in a great number of these there were shells and other marine productions; he afterwards adds, that by his correspondents and friends he was assured, that in other countries the earth is composed of the same materials, and that shells are found there, not only in the plains but on the highest mountains, in the deepest quarries, and in an infinity of different places. He perceived their strata to be horizontal and disposed one over the other, as matters are which are transported by the waters, and deposited in form of sediment. These general remarks, which are true, are followed by particular observations, by which he evidently shews, that fossils found incorporated in the strata are real shells and marine productions, not minerals and singular bodies, the sport of nature, &c.

To these observations, though partly made before him, which he has collected and proved, he adds others less exact. He asserts, that all matters of different strata are placed one on the other in the order of their specific gravity.

This general assertion is not true, for we daily see rocks placed above clay, sand, coal, and bitumen, and which certainly are specifically heavier than either of these latter materials. If, in fact, we found throughout the earth that the first strata was bitumen, then chalk, then marl, clay, sand, stone, marble, and at last metals, so that the composition of the earth exactly followed the law of gravity, there would be an appearance that they might have been precipitated at the same time, which our author asserts with confidence, in spite of the evidence to the contrary; for, without being a naturalist, we need only have our eye-sight to be convinced that heavy strata are often found above lighter, and that consequently these sediments were not precipitated all at one time, but have been brought and deposited successively by the water. As this is the foundation of his system, and is manifestly false, we shall follow it no farther than to show how far an erroneous principle may produce false combinations and erroneous conclusions.

All the matters, says our author, which compose the earth, from the summits of the highest mountains, to the greatest depths of mines, are disposed by strata, according to their specific weights; therefore he concludes the whole has been dissolved and precipitated at one time. But in what manner, and at what time was it dissolved? In water, replies he, and at the time of the deluge. But there is not a sufficient quantity of water on the globe for this to be effected, since there is more land than water, and the bottom of the sea itself is earth. This he admits, but says, there is more water than is requisite at the centre of the earth, that it was only necessary for it to ascend, and possess a power of dissolving every substance but shells, afterwards to find the means for this water to re-enter the abyss, and to make all this agree with the history of the deluge. This then is the system, of which the author does not entertain the least doubt; for when it is opposed to him that water cannot dissolve marble, stone, and metals, especially in forty days, the duration of the deluge, he answers simply, that nevertheless it did happen so. When he is asked, what the virtue of this water of the abyss was, to dissolve all the earth, and at the same time preserve the shells? he says, that he never pretended that this water was a dissolvent; but that it is clear, by facts, that the earth has been dissolved and the shells preserved. When he was evidently shown that if he had no reason to give, or facts to support, for these phenomena, his system was useless, he said, we have only to imagine that, during the deluge, the force of gravity and the coherency of matter ceased on a sudden, and by this supposition the dissolution of the old world would be explained in a very easy and satisfactory manner. But, it was said to him, if the power which holds the parts of matter united was suspended, why were not the shells dissolved as well as all the rest? Here he makes a discourse on the organization of shells and bones of animals, by which he pretends to prove that their texture being fibrous, and different from that of minerals, their power of cohesion was different also; after all, we have, says he, only to suppose that the power of gravity and cohesion did not entirely cease, but that it was only diminished sufficient to disunite all the parts of minerals, and not those of animals. To all this we cannot be prevented from discovering, that our author's philosophy was not equal to his talents for observation; and I do not think it necessary seriously to refute opinions which have no foundation, especially when they have been imagined against the rules of probability, and drawn from consequences contrary to mechanical laws.

ARTICLE V.

EXPOSITION OF SOME OTHER SYSTEMS

It is plain that the three forementioned hypotheses have much in common with each other. They all agree in this point, that during the deluge the earth changed its form, as well externally as internally; but these speculators have not considered that the earth before the deluge was inhabited by the same species of men and animals, and must necessarily have been nearly such as it is at present. The sacred writings teach us, that before the deluge there were rivers, seas, mountains, and forests. That these rivers and mountains were, for the most part, retained in the same situations; the Tigris and Euphrates were the rivers of the ancient paradise; that the mountain of Armenia, on which the ark rested, was one of the highest mountains in the world at the deluge, as it is at present: that the same plants and animals which exist now, existed then; for we read of the serpent, of the raven, of the crow, and of the dove, which brought the olive branch into the ark. Although Tournefort asserts there are no olive trees for more than 400 miles from Mount Ararat, and passes some absurd jokes thereon9, it is nevertheless certain there were olives in this neighbourhood at the time of the deluge, since holy writ assures us of it in the most express terms; but it is by no means astonishing that in the space of 4000 years the olive trees should have been destroyed in those quarters, and multiplied in others; it is therefore contrary to scripture and reason, that those authors have supposed the earth was quite different from its present state before the deluge; and this contradiction between their hypothesis and the sacred text, as well as physical truths, must cause their systems to be rejected, if even they should agree with some phenomena. Burnet gives neither observations, nor any real facts, for the support of his system. Woodward has only given us an essay, in which he promised much more than he could perform: his book is a project, the execution of which has not been seen. He has made use of two general observations; the first, that the earth is every where composed of matters which formerly were in a state of fluidity, transported by the waters, and deposited in horizontal strata. The second, that there are abundance of marine productions in most parts of the bowels of the earth. To give a reason for these facts, he has recourse to the universal deluge, or rather it appears that he gives them as proofs of the deluge; but, like Burnet, he falls into evident contradictions, for it is not to be supposed with them that there were no mountains prior to the deluge, since it is expressly stated, that the waters rose fifteen cubits above the tops of the highest mountains. On the other hand, it is not said that these waters destroyed or dissolved these mountains; but, on the contrary, these mountains remained in their places, and the ark rested on that which the water first deserted. Besides how can it be imagined that, during the short duration of the deluge, the waters were able to dissolve the mountains and the whole body of the earth? Is it not an absurdity to suppose that in forty days all marble, rocks, stones, and minerals, were dissolved by water? Is it not a manifest contradiction to admit this total dissolution, and at the same time maintain that shells, bones, and marine productions were preserved entire, and resisted that which had dissolved the most solid substances? I shall not therefore hesitate to say, that Woodward, with excellent facts and observations, has formed but a poor and inconsistent system.

Whiston, who came last, greatly enriched the other two, and notwithstanding he gave a vast scope to his imagination has not fallen into contradiction; he speaks of matters not very credible, but they are neither absolutely nor evidently impossible. As we are ignorant of the centre of the earth, he thought he might suppose it was a solid matter, surrounded with a ring of heavy fluid, and afterwards with a ring of water, on which the external crust was sustained; in the latter the different parts of this crust were more or less sunk, in proportion to their relative weights, which produced mountains and inequalities on the surface of the earth. Here, however, this astronomer has committed a mechanical blunder; he did not recollect that the earth, according to this hypothesis, must be an uniform arch, and that consequently it could not be borne on the water it contains, and much less sunk therein. I do not know that there are any other physical errors; but he has made a great number of errors, both in metaphysics and theology. On the whole it cannot be denied absolutely that the earth meeting with the tail of a comet might not be inundated, especially allowing the author that the tail of a comet may contain aqueous vapours; nor can it be denied as an absolute impossibility that the tail of a comet, in returning from its perihelium, might not burn the earth, if we suppose, with Mr. Whiston, that the comet passed very near the sun; it is the same with the rest of the system. But though his ideas are not absolutely impossibilities, there is so little probability to each thing, when taken separately, that the result upon the whole taken together puts it beyond credibility.

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. He presents every thing which he had collected in great order; but with all those advantages, it appears that he has succeeded no better than the rest in making a physical and reasonable history of the changes which had happened to the globe, and that he was very wide from having found the real cause of those effects which he relates. To be convinced of this we need only cast our eyes on the propositions which he deduces from the phenomena, and which ought to serve for the basis of his theory. He says, that the whole globe took its form at one time, and not successively; that its form and disposition prove that it has been in a state of fluidity; that the present state of the earth is very different from that in which it was for many ages after its first formation; that the matter of the globe was at the beginning less dense than since it altered its appearance; that the condensation of its solid parts diminished by degrees with its velocity, so that after having made a number of revolutions on its axis, and round the sun, it found itself on a sudden in a state of dissolution, which destroyed its first structure. This happened about the vernal equinox. That the sea-shells introduced themselves into the dissolved matters; that after this dissolution the earth took the form it now has, and that the fire which directly infused itself therein consumed it by degrees, and it will be one day destroyed by a terrible explosion, accompanied with a general conflagration, which will augment the atmosphere of the globe, and diminish its diameter, and that then the earth, instead of beds of sand or earth, will have only strata of calcined metal and mountains composed of amalgamas of different metals.

This is sufficient to shew the system M. Bourguet meditated; to divine in this manner the past, and predict the future, nearly as others have predicted, does not appear to me to be an effort of judgment: this author had more erudition than sound and general views: he appears to be deficient in that capaciousness of ideas necessary to follow the extent of the subject, and enable him to comprehend the chain of causes and effects.

In the acts of Leipsic, the famous Leibnitz published a scheme of quite a different system, under the title of Protogaea. The earth, according to Bourguet and others, must end by fire; according to Leibnitz it began by it, and has suffered many more changes and revolutions than is imagined. The greatest part of the terrestrial matter was surrounded by violent flames at the time when Moses says light was divided from darkness. The planets, as well as the earth, were fixed stars, luminous of themselves. After having burnt a long time, he pretends that they were extinguished for want of combustible matter, and are become opaque bodies. The fire, by melting the matter, produced a vitrified crust, and the basis of all the matter which composes the globe is glass, of which sand and gravel are only fragments. The other kinds of earth are formed from a mixture of this sand, with fixed salts and water, and when the crust cooled, the humid particles, which were raised in form of vapours, refel, and formed the sea. They at first covered the whole surface, and even surmounted the highest mountains. According to this author, the shells, and other wrecks of the sea, which are every where to be found, positively prove that the sea has covered the whole earth; and the great quantity of fixed salts, sand, and other melted and calcined matters, which are included in the bowels of the earth, prove that the conflagration had been general, and that it preceded the existence of the sea. Although these thoughts are void of proofs, they are capital. The ideas have connection, the hypotheses are not impossible, and the consequences that may be drawn therefrom are not contradictory: but the grand defect of this theory is, that it is not applicable to the present state of the earth; it is the past which it explains, and this past is so far back, and has left us so few remains, that we may say what we please of it, and the probability will be in proportion as a man has talents to elucidate what he asserts. 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; for if that was so, it must necessarily be admitted, that shell-fish, and other inhabitants of the sea, of which we find the remains in the internal part of the earth, existed long before man, and all terrestrial animals. Now, independent of the testimony of holy writ, is it not reasonable to think, that all animals and vegetables are nearly as ancient as each other?

M. Scheutzer, in a Dissertation, addressed to the Academy of Sciences in 1728, attributes, like Woodward, the change, or rather the second formation of the globe, to the universal deluge; to explain that of mountains, he says, that after the deluge, God chusing to return the waters into subterraneous reservoirs, broke and displaced with his all-powerful hand a number of beds, before horizontal, and raised them above the surface of the globe, which was originally level. The whole Dissertation is composed to imply this opinion. As it was requisite these eminences should be of a solid consistence, M. Scheutzer remarks, that God only drew them from places where there were many stones; from hence, says he, it proceeds that those countries, like Switzerland, which are very stony, are also mountainous; and on the contrary, those, as Holland, Flanders, Hungary and Poland, have only sand or clay, even to a very great depth, and are almost entirely without mountains.10

This author, more than any other, is desirous of blending Physic with Theology, and though he has given some good observations, the systematical part of his works is still weaker than those who preceded him. On this subject he has even made declamations and ridiculous witticisms, as may be seen in his Visciam quærelæ, &c. without speaking of his large work in many folio volumes, Physica Sacra, a puerile work, which appears to be composed less for the instruction of men than for the amusement of children.

Steno, and some others, have attributed the cause of the inequalities of the earth to particular inundations, earthquakes, &c. but the effects of these secondary causes have been only able to produce some slight changes. We admit of these causes after the first cause, the motion of the flux and reflux, and of the sea from east to west. Neither Steno, nor the rest, have given theory, nor even any general facts on this matter.11

Ray pretends that all mountains have been produced by earthquakes, and he has composed a treatise to prove it; we shall shew under the article of Volcanos what little foundation his opinion is built upon.

We cannot dispense with observing that Burnet, Woodward, Whiston, and most of these other authors, have committed an error which deserves to be cleared up; which is, to have looked upon the deluge as possible by the action of natural causes, whereas scripture presents it to us as produced by the immediate will of God; there is no natural cause which can produce on the whole surface of the earth, the quantity of water required to cover the highest mountains; and if even we could imagine a cause proportionate to this effect, it would still be impossible to find another cause capable of causing the water to disappear: allowing Whiston, that these waters proceeded from the tail of a comet, we deny that any could proceed from the great abyss, or that they all returned into it, since the great abyss, according to him, being surrounded on every side by the crust, or terrestrial orb, it is impossible that the attraction of the comet could cause any motion to the fluids it contained; much less, as he says, a violent flux and reflux; hence there could not be issued from, nor entered into, the great abyss, a single drop of water; and unless it is supposed that the waters which fell from the comet have been destroyed by a miracle, they would still be on the surface of the earth, covering the summits of the highest mountains. Nothing better characterises a miracle, than the impossibility of explaining the effect of it by natural causes. Our authors have made vain efforts to give a reason for the deluge; their physical efforts, and the secondary causes, which they made use of, prove the truth of the fact as reported in the scriptures, and demonstrate that it could only have been performed by the first cause, the will of the Almighty.