fhot forth rays, fent out fparks, made explosions, and afterwards undergone, as they cooled, different ebullitions, according as water, air, and other matters, which could not bear fire, fell upon their furface-then-the production and conflict of the elements, could not but produce the inequalities, afperities, depths, heights, and caverns, both at the furface, and in the first trata of the interior of thofe great bodies. Hence we are to date the formation of the highest mountains in our globe, of the mountains in the moon (where our Author feems to have peculiar correfpondence and connexions), and all the inequalities that have been obferved in the planets.

All this is amazing philofophy! and the long and ample phyfical reafonings employed by M. DE BUFFON, to render it fpecious, are ftill more amazing.-They have fome fort of affinity to each other; but the whole chain hangs upon nothing: It is a fairy tale, in all the extent of that term; but it is amufing, and as a romance, may produce entertainment. What, for example, can be more amufing, than his account of the formation of the moon? This planet, according to him, owes its existence to fome of the lets denfe parts of the earth, projected from the equator, where its rotation is the most rapid, and which, by their mutual attraction, gathered themselves together (like an army rallying in flight), at a distance of between 2 and 300,000 miles, to orm the lunar globe. The fatellites of the other planets were produced by fimilar projections; and the upfhot of this first epocha is, that our globe, confidering its period of fluidity- and that of its white heat (incandefcence) the former of which lafted (as our Author's correfpondents, we fuppofe, have informed him) 34,270 years, and the latter 2936, there must have elapfed a duration of 37,206 years, before any living being could start up out of the mud in our globe,-or (as the Author expreffes it) the end of this period was the first moment in which the birth of any living being was poffible.

The earth being come to a ftate of folidity, which forms the fecond Epocha of Nature, the act of refrigeration (as happens in the cooling of a mafs of fluid metal) muft have formed inequalities, cavities, fwellings, bulgings, and afperitics on or near the furface of the earth, which ftill exift in our hills, vallies, caverns, and chains of mountains. Thefe chains of mountains, produced by the combat of cold with matter in fufion belong to this fecond epocha, and preceded, many ages, the formation of calcareous hills, which could not exift before the settlement of the waters on our globe, as their compofition fuppofes the existence of fhell-fish.-But as yet the waters were all in the atmofphere of the earth; the furface of which, though folid, was nevertheless, not cold enough to give the waters a permanent refidence, nor to prevent their being exhaled in vapours

as

as they fell. It was now, i. c. in this epocha, or in the firft 37,000 years of the globe, that the great veins of metals, which we find in the mines, were formed by fublimation. In a word, the furface of the earth, during this epocha, was a dry skeleton, deftitute of feas, and calcareous hills, as alfo of all thofe horizontal strata of ftone, chalk, vegetable earth, clay, and all those fubitances, whether fluid or folid, that were afterwards depofited by the waters it exhibited only the arid afpect of a vitrifiable rock-perpendicular chinks produced in the time of its confolidation,-metals and fixed minerals, which, being feparated from the vitrifiable rock by the action of fire, filled by fufion or fublimation, the chinks of the internal rock of the globe, and fo on. We must not pretend to follow our Author in all the particulars he enumerates, relative to the topography of the globe in this fecond epocha; but we cannot help obferving, how ingenipufly he avails himself, in favour of his hypothesis, of a fact, which is not unworthy of attention, that the higheft parts of the great ridges of mountains in Africa and America, are in both thefe countries under the equator.

When the earth cooled to fuch a degree, as to receive the water from the atmosphere, without fending it back in vapours, the waters fell in immenfe quantities, and covered our continents, about 36,000 years after the formation of the planets; and this introduces the Third Epocha. The fhells and other marine productions, that are found in the Alps, and in the Pyrenées, are proofs, that the fea, in ancient times, covered the continent of Europe, to the height of 1500 fathoms above its prefent level; and proofs of a fimilar nature are alleged, by our Author, with respect to the continents in other parts of the globe. It was during this period, which takes in the fpace of 14,000 years, that the greateft changes and revolutions were effectuated in the terreftrial globe. The fuppofitions of our Author are no where more audacious than in this epocha,-for he begins by telling us, that feveral fpecies of animals were then loft, which had no analogy with the fish and other aquatics, that now inhabit the How does he know this? He concludes it, from fupfofing, that at the firft defcent of the waters upon the earth, their animal productions must have been adapted to the intenfe degree of heat that must have taken place for fome time. But why fuppofe that the waters were boiling hot ?-and if they were-why fuppofe that fifh were formed in them before they cooled, unless the Author can produce fome fragments, or records, of thofe primitive aquatic animals? This accumulation of visionary inventions becomes irkfome.-As to our Author's description of the effects of this tremendous water-fall, it is more interefting, because, amidst the exuberance of fancy and fable, we can difcern fome mixture or appearance of truth. This defcription

is poetical, picturefque, and terrible. The feparation of the elements of water and air, the fhocks of waves and tempefts falling with fury on the arid, burning and smoking earth, the internal vaults and caverns of the earth overwhelmed in ruins by the waters forcing for themselves fubterraneous paffages, and thus producing a fucceffive lowering of the ocean, are here painted at full length, with a pencil that Homer and Milton would fmile to fee in the hands of a natural historian, and that Newton would behold with a loud laugh in the hands of a natural philofopher: the two former would claim him as a deferter from Parnaffus,—and if he fled to the latter for refuge, he would certainly give him up.

Amidst this fhock and conflict of elements, water mixed with air, earth and fire transformed the feria and fandy particles of the primitive glaffy fubftance into clay, and by its motion changed their place. NATURE (our Author's goddess) being then in her prime vigour (which is fomewhat furprising, after she had cooled and loft fo much of her fire) fell to work with organic and living matter. Where did the get it? if the made it the looks fomething like a god,-if fhe did not make it, and it did not make itself, what is the conclufion ?-But let us not interrupt our Hiftorian by troublesome questions. Nature, then, being in her prime vigour, gave existence to thofe gigantic productions, which feem to have been frequent in the firft ages of the world, and to many claffes of beings, which are now extinct fince the earth has loft the degree of heat that is neceffary to their propagation. Our Author, both here, and in notes annexed to the work before us, endeavours to prove, by a variety of circumftances and teftimonies, the former existence of these beings; and he refumes alfo, in a few words, the arguments he had before used in his theory of the earth, to prove that its prefent furface was arranged by the waters, and formed from their fediment. The argillaceous earths, or clays, were firft formed; and, after them, the firft fhell-fish and vegetables came forth into exiftence, and in proportion as they perished, the fragments of the former produced calcareous ftones, and thofe of the latter, bitumens and coals, while the waters, by their motion, conftructed the organization of the earth's furface by horizontal ftrata, while the currents of thefe waters produced thofe falient and re-entering angles that form its contours, or external figure. Moreover, as the waters funk by the means already mentioned, the lands, which they had covered, feemed to emerge, and their furface exhibited a multitude of marine productions.

As the action of the fun is much stronger in the equatorial parts of the globe than elsewhere, our Author concludes, that the polar regions were cooled before thofe of the equator, and confequently inhabited before them. But when the waters,

which

which fell first towards the poles, directed their course towards the equator, and arrived there, then, fays our Author, the lands of the torrid zone became the theatre of the most convulfive revolutions, as may be concluded, fays he, from a fuperficial view of a geographical globe; for the whole fpace between the circles of that zone exhibits nothing but the fragments of continents overwhelmed, and lands funk or shattered: the immenfe quantity of ifles, ftreights, fhallows, quick-fands, arms of the fea, &c. indicate great finkings in the lands of the equatorial region, and hence the lowering and retreat of the ocean ⚫ which covered our continents.

This retreat of the waters, and the origin of volcanos, form the fourth epocha; and here the details, into which our Author enters, are ample and circumftantial. Of all this we can only give the following fketch: The vast quantity of substances carried along with the impetuous waters, and depofited by them in the lower parts of the globe, where there were already mineral fubftances fublimated by the intenfe heat of the earth, formed the first materials, and the first aliment for future volcanos. The most ancient of thefe (for they date from very different periods) could not act at least in a permanent manner before the finking of the ocean, which had covered all the earth, except the fummits of fome mountains. The marine volcanos can only form temporary explofions; for the fame inftant that the fire is kindled by the effervefcence of pyritous and combustible matters, it is extinguifhed by the water, which rushes into their furnace by all the openings which the fire makes to force its paffage. The terreftrial volcanos have, on the contrary, a permanent action, proportioned to the quantity of matter they contain; but they require a certain quantity of water to put them in effervefcence; and it is by the fhock of a volume of water against a volume of fire, that their eruptions are produced; fo that they could not act until the waters funk into the cavities of the earth, and they cease to act when the waters retire from their neighbourhood: hence fo many extinguifhed volcanos in thofe countries, which the fea has abandoned; and hence we learn why the volcanos, that are still in action, are those which are placed in islands, or near the fea-coafts. We cannot fee acutely enough to take an accurate view of these terrible fireengines; but as our Author looks upon the proper and intrinfic heat of the globe to be the ground and bafis of the electrical matter, fo does he think that electricity is a very confiderable agent in earthquakes and volcanos. He explains ingeniously (for he has wit and inexhauftible invention at command) how it comes to pafs, that the continual emanations of this terrestrial heat, though palpably felt, are not vifible, and remain under the form of an obfcure warmth, as long as their motion is free;

but

but produce a lively fire, and ftrong explosions, when they are either forced out of their natural direction, or accumulated by the friction of bodies. Until the volcanos began to act, there were but three matters on our globe; the vitrifiable, formed by 'fire; the calcareous, by water; and all the other fubftances produced by the putrefaction and decompofition of animals and vegetables. The fire of volcanos has contributed to the formation of a fourth clafs of fubftances, fome of which partake of the nature of the three already mentioned, though others feem exempt from all mixture. Their explofions formed new iflands -the'r lava covered all the lands contiguous to thefe explosions with greater or fmaller quantities of their contents-the volcanos, by fucceffive eruptions, formed new beds of lava; and thefe beds becoming fertile, in procefs of time, furnish, according to our Author, an invincible proof that the primitive furface of the earth, firft in fufion, and afterwards confolidated, may have been alfo endued with fecundity.--It was only at the end of this epocha, which carries the age of our globe to its 56th or 60,ocoth year, that we can date the birth of terreftrial animals, fays M. de BUFFON.

[To be concluded in our Review for February.]

ART. XI.

Catalogue Raisonné des Manufcrits confervés dans la Bibliothique de la Ville Republique de Geneve.-A Defcriptive and Critical Catalogue of the Manufcripts depofited in the Library of Geneva, by the Rev. John Sennebier, Librarian of the Republic of Geneva, &c. 8vo. Geneva. 1779:

TH

HIS publication doth as much honour to the literary merit of M. Sennebier, as his other productions do to his abilities in philofophical inveftigation. The utility of works of this kind is unquestionable. Many valuable difcoveries are made by the study of manufcripts. They not only contribute to the correction and improvement of the text of ancient authors, and to illuftrate obfcure paffages, but they may often be employed to fettle dubious points of hiftory, and to throw light upon the origin of customs, manners, forms of civil government, and many firft fprings in the political conftitutions of different nations. Our Author obferves, in a very fenfible and judicious Preface to this catalogue, that the learned M. Leffing, librarian to the duke of Brunfwic, has found, in the library of Wolfembuttel, feveral unknown books and manufcripts that illuftrate, in a fingular manner, the civil, ecclefiaftical, and moral hiftory of the middle age and, certainly, however barbarous and uncultivated any period of time may feem to be, yet every thing that relates to the knowledge of man, merits the curiofity and attention of a philofopher.