the obliquity of the ecliptic, as, confidering the mutability of the inclination of the earth's axis, our globe might formerly have revolved upon an axis fufficiently different from its prefent one, to have placed Siberia under the equator.-We leave the curious reader to examine, in M. BUFFON's work, the folidity of his answers to these and several other objections: we hope to give, foon, an account of a work, which will open new views upon this fubject, and diffolve into air the gorgeous bubbles that our Author has been blowing with fuch ingenious efforts, in his theory of the earth, and his epochas of nature. But let us continue, and hear him out; for in his reveries there is entertainment, and always inftruction, of fome kind or other. After having rejected the explication of the difcovery of elephants bones in Siberia, given by Gmelin, and others, he explains this phenomenon by, and ufes it in fupport of, his brilJiant hypothefis. He accordingly obferves, that the earth could not pafs, all at once, from its original ftate of fire-caufed fluidi. ty and liquefaction, to a mild and temperate warmth: the tranfition must have been gradual; and the climates, at the pole, like all the others, paffing through fucceffive degrees of refrigeration, there must have been a period of time, nay, even a confiderable period, in the fucceffion of ages, when the northern regions, after having undergone the moft ardent heat, must have enjoyed the fame degree of warmth, that is found in the fouthern climates at this day;-therefore, the elephants might have lived in Siberia-and therefore, they did live there, -and therefore, the earth was knocked out of the fun by a logger-head of a comet,--and therefore, when it was knocked out, it had wit and contrivance, not to fall back again into its place, though liquid, but to whirl about the orb from whence it came, to cool by degrees,--and therefore, though nothing more nor lefs than a piece of glass, it fent forth from its bofom, plants, animals, men, and women,-and therefore, glass is the principle of order, vegetation, life, intelligence, genius, nay, (if we go to first principles) the original caufe of our Author's existence, and philofophical fyftem: pardon-therefore, gentle reader, the brittleness and fragility of the latter. To the five epochas already indicated, M. DE BUFFON adds a fixth, and a feventh. The fixth, which he confiders as pofterior, in time, to the five others, is the epocha of the feparation of the two great continents. He is fure this feparation did not exift, when the elephants lived equally in the northern parts of Europe, Afia, and America (for their bones are found in Canada as well as in Ruffia)-Why not? Might not glafs and molecules produce elephants in America as well as in Afia, though these continents had never been joined? However, according to our Author's hypothefis, the feparation of the can tinents tinents took place in a period pofterior to the exiflence of these animals in the northern regions; but, as elephants teeth are found alfo in Poland, Germany, France, and Italy, he concludes from thence, that in proportion as the northern climates grew cool, the elephants fhifred towards thofe countries that are fituated in the temperate zones, where the heat of the fun compenfated the lofs of the internal warmth of the earth, and when these zones, in their turn, grew cold, the chilly beafts continued their emigration to the climates of the torrid zone, where the internal heat of the earth has been the most durable, on account of the thickness of the earth's spheroid in these regions, and where, alone, the internal heat of the globe, joined with that of the fun, is intenfe enough to maintain the life, and facilitate the propagation of these animals. Though thefe fix epochas, in the Hiftory of Nature, are not marked by fixed points, nor determined by portions of time that can be exactly measured, our Author, always bold in enterprize, undertakes the arduous tafk of comparing them together, eftimating their relative and refpective duration, and bringing under thefe periods of duration other monuments and facts, which indicate cotemporary dates, and fome intermediate and fubfequent epochas.-But before he enters upon this fingular eftimate, he obviates an objection which he forefees will be brought against his whole theory, on account of its attributing to the matter of our terreftrial globe fuch a remote antiquity, as is incompatible with the Mofaic account of the creation, and the 6000 years duration, which that account affigns to our globe. M. DE BUFFON cripples through this objection as well as he can, by diftinguishing the period of duration that intervened between the creation of matter in general, and the production of light, from that which intervened between the production of light and its separation from the darknefs, and by confidering the fix days of which Mofes fpeaks, as fix periods of duration, which may be lengthened out, as far as is neceffary to accommodate them to philofophical difcoveries and calculations. Thus he bends the Mofaical narration to his hypothefis. He does more: if his explication of the facred writings, though plain and perfpicuous, fhould appear unfatisfactory to fome rigid maintainers of the literal fenfe of Holy Scripture, he defires modeftly (and we hope fincerely) that fuch perfons would judge him by his intention, and confider, that his fyftem, of the Epochas of Nature, being merely bypothetical, can, by no means, prove detrimental to revealed truths, which (continues he) are fo many unchangeable axioms, independent on every hypothefis, and to which I have fubmitted, and do ftill fubmit my ideas.'-We fhall make no commentary on thefe conceffions in favour of revealed religion, nor fhall we compare them with other parts of this Author's writings, writings. There is no kind of contraft fo difgufting to us, as that which affects candour, veracity, and moral character: we willingly turn away our view from it, and avoid, as much as duty will permit us, to difcover it,-in men, more especially, whom genius, talent, and good-nature, have made refpectable. -We therefore proceed in our analysis: What has then happened in each of the Epochas of Nature, that have been already enumerated? Our Author answers this queftion, as if he had been prefent at each.-In the first epocha, when the earth, in fufion, was by its rotation on its axis, formed into the shape of an oblate spheroid, raised and encreased in diameter at the equator, and flattened or diminished in diameter at the poles, the other planets were in the fame ftate of liquefaction, fince there is nearly the fame relation between their polar and equatorial diameters, that takes place with respect to our globe, confidering the difference that there is in the velocity with which they respectively move round their axes. The motion of Jupiter is much more rapid than that of the earth, and his globe, therefore, is proportionably more bulky, and raifed at the equator, and small and flatted towards the poles. The velocity of the rotation of the planets is, therefore, the cause of their density and protuberance at the equator, and their depreffion at the poles, which could not have beeh the cafe (according to M. DE BUFFON), if their primitive ftate had not been a ftate of fufion or fluidity. But whence this fufion or fluidity? We know (answers he) in nature, no fire, no principle of heat, but the fun, which was capable of melting and keeping liquefied the matter of which the earth and planets are compofed, and it is, therefore, to be prefumed (the conclufion, indeed, is prefumptuous enough, fince it refts only on our ignorance), that this terreftrial and planetary Matter belonged formerly to the very body of the fun, and was feparated, or dashed from thence, by one and the fame blow, or impulfion: nay, our Author calculates the lofs of the fun by this bufinefs, at a 650th part of his ancient mafs.-The firft age of the universe (he means the folar fyftem) was, confequently, that in which the earth and the planets, having received their form, acquired a certain degree of confiftence, and from fluid became folid bodies. This change was effectuated naturally by the diminution of their heat alone. The refrigeration (as is the cafe with all heated bodies) began firft at the furface, previous to which all the planets were (if we will take our Author's word for it) nothing but liquid mafles of glafs, furrounded with a fphere of vapours. While that state of fufion continued, and long after, the planets were luminous bodies in themselves; nor did they become dark and obfcure, until they were folid, even to their centers. In their first periods, when they were intrinfically luminous, they must have fhot 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 firft ftrata of the interior of those great bodies. Hence we are to date the formation of the higheft mountains in our globe, of the mountains in the moon (where our Author feems to have peculiar correfpondence and connexions), and all the inequali ties 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 lefs denfe parts of the earth, projected from the equator, where its rotation is the moft 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 form the lunar globe. The fatellites of the other planets were produced by fimilar projections; and the upfhot of this firft 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 exprefles 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 mass of fluid metal) must have formed inequalities, cavities, fwellings, bulgings, and afperitis on or near the furface of the earth, which ftill ex ft in our hills, vallies, caverns, and chains of mountains. Thefe chains of mountains, produced by the combat of cold with matter in fution belong to this fecond epocha, and preceded, many ages, the formation of calcareous hills, which could not exist before the fettlement of the waters on our globe, as their compofition fuppofes the existence of fhell-fifh.-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. e. in this epocha, or in the first 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 ftrata 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 fubli mation, the chinks of the internal rock of the globe, and so on. We mult 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 ingenioufly he avails himself, in favour of his hypothefis, of a fact, which is not unworthy of attention, that the highest 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 refpect 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 greatest changes and revolutions were effectuated in the terreftrial globe. The fuppofitions of our Author are no where more audacious than in this epecha,-for he begins by telling us, that feveral fpecies of animals were then loft, which had no analogy with the fifh and other aquatics, that now inhabit the ocean. How does he know this? He concludes it, from fuppofing, that at the firft defcent of the waters upon the earth, their animal productions must have been adapted to the intense degree of heat that must have taken place for fome time. But why Suppofe that the waters were boiling hot?-and if they were-why fuppofe that fifh were formed in them before they cooled, unlefs the Author can produce fome fragments, or records, of thofe primitive aquatic animals? This accumulation of vifionary inventions becomes irkfome.-As to our Author's defcription of the effects of this tremendous water-fall, it is more interefting, becaufe, amidft the exuberance of fancy and fable, we can difcern fome mixture or appearance of truth. This defcription |