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

I own, that it is not impossible to traverse the high seas without a compass, and that very resolute people might have undertaken to seek after the new world by conducting themselves simply by the stars. The Astrolabe being known to the ancients, it might strike them they could leave France or Spain, and sail to the west, by keeping the polar star always to the right, and by frequent soundings might have kept nearly in the same latitude; without doubt the Carthaginians, of whom Aristotle makes mention, found the means of returning from these remote countries by keeping the polar star to the left; but it must be allowed that a like voyage would be looked upon as a rash enterprize, and that consequently we must not be astonished that the ancients had not even conceived the project.

Previous to Christopher Columbus's expedition, the Azores, the Canaries, and Madeira were discovered. It was remarked, that when the west winds lasted a long time, the sea brought pieces of foreign wood on the coast of these islands, canes of unknown species, and even dead bodies, which by many marks were discovered to be neither European nor African. Columbus himself remarked, that on the side of the west certain winds blew only a few days, and which he was persuaded were land winds; but although he had all these advantages over the ancients, and the knowledge of the compass, the difficulties still to conquer were so great, that there was only the success he met with which could justify the enterprise. Suppose, for a moment, that the continent of the new world had been 1000 or 1500 miles farther than it in fact is, a thing with Columbus could neither know nor foresee, he would not have arrived there, and perhaps this great country might still have remained unknown. This conjecture is so much the better founded, as Columbus, although the most able navigator of his time, was seized with fear and astonishment in his second voyage to the new world; for as in his first, he only found some islands, he directed his course more to the south to discover a continent, and was stopt by currents, the considerable extent and direction of which always opposed his course, and obliged him to direct his search to the west; he imagined that what had hindered him from advancing on the southern side was not currents, but that the sea flowed by raising itself towards the heavens, and that perhaps both one and the other touched on the southern side. True it is, that in great enterprises the least unfortunate circumstance may turn a man's brain, and abate his courage.

ARTICLE VII.
ON THE PRODUCTION OF THE STRATA, OR BEDS OF EARTH

We have shewn, in the first article, that by virtue of the mutual attraction between the parts of matter, and of the centrifugal force, which results from its diurnal rotation, the earth has necessarily taken the form of a spheroid, the diameters of which differ about a 230th part, and that it could only proceed from the changes on the surface, caused by the motion of the air and water, that this difference could become greater, as is pretended to be the case from the measures taken under the equator, and within the polar circle. This figure of the earth, which so well agrees with hydrostatical laws, and with our theory, supposes the globe to have been in a state of liquefaction when it assumed its form, and we have proved that the motions of projection and rotation were imprinted at the same time by a like impulsion. We shall the more easily believe that the earth has been in a state of liquefaction produced by fire, when we consider the nature of the matters which the globe incloses, the greatest part of which are vitrified or vitrifiable; especially when we reflect on the impossibility there is that the earth should ever have been in a state of fluidity, produced by the waters; since there is infinitely more earth than water, and that water has not the power of dissolving stone, sand, and other matters of which the earth is composed.

It is plain then that the earth took its figure at the time when it was liquefied by fire: by pursuing our hypothesis it appears, that when the sun quitted it, the earth had no other form than that of a torrent of melted and inflamed vapour matter; that this torrent collected itself by the mutual attraction of its parts, and became a globe, to which the rotative motion gave the figure of a spheroid; and when the earth was cooled, the vapours, which were first extended like the tails of comets, by degrees condensed and fell upon the surface, depositing, at the same time, a slimy substance mixed with sulphurous and saline matters, a part of which, by the motion of the waters, was swept into the perpendicular cracks, where it produced metals, while the rest remained on the surface, and produced that reddish earth which forms the first strata; and which, according to different places, is more or less blended with animal and vegetable particles, so reduced that the organization is no longer perceptible.

Therefore, in the first state of the earth, the globe was internally composed of vitrified matter, as I believe it is at present, above which were placed those bodies the fire had most divided, as sand, which are only fragments of glass; and above these, pumice stones and the scoria of the vitrified matter, which formed the various clays; the whole was covered with water 5 or 600 feet deep, produced by the condensation of the vapours, when the globe began to cool. This water every where deposited a muddy bed, mixed with waters which sublime and exhale by the fire; and the air was formed of the most subtile vapours, which, by their lightness, disengaged themselves from the waters, and surmounted them.

Such was the state of the globe when the action of the tides, the winds, and the heat of the sun, began to change the surface of the earth. The diurnal motion, and the flux and reflux, at first raised the waters under the southern climate, which carried with them mud, clay, and sand, and by raising the parts of the equator, they by degrees perhaps lowered those of the poles about two leagues, as we before mentioned; for the waters soon reduced into powder the pumice stones and other spongeous parts of the vitrified matter that were at the surface, they hollowed some places, and raised others, which in course of time became continents, and produced all the inequalities, and which are more considerable towards the equator than the poles; for the highest mountains are between the tropics and the middle of the temperate zones, and the lowest are from the polar circle to the poles; between the tropics are the Cordeliers, and almost all the mountains of Mexico and Brazil, the great and little Atlas, the Moon, &c. Beside the land which is between the tropics, from the superior number of islands found in those parts, is the most unequal of all the globe, as evidently is the sea.

However independent my theory may be of that hypothesis of what passed at the time of the first state of the globe, I refer to it in this article, in order to shew the connection and possibility of the system which I endeavoured to maintain in the first article. It must only be remarked, that my theory does not stray far from it, as I take the earth in a state nearly similar to what it appears at present, and as I do not make use of any of the suppositions which are used on reasoning on the past state of the terrestrial globe. But as I here present a new idea on the subject of the sediment deposited by the water, which, in my opinion, has perforated the upper bed of earth, it appears to me also necessary to give the reason on which I found this opinion.

The vapours which rise in the air produce rain, dew, aerial fires, thunder, and other meteors. These vapours are therefore blended with aqueous, aerial, sulphurous and terrestrial particles, &c. and it is the solid and earthy particles which form the mud or slime we are now speaking of. When rain water is suffered to rest, a sediment is formed at bottom; and having collected a quantity, if it is suffered to stand and corrupt, it produces a kind of mud which falls to the bottom of the vessel. Dew produces much more of this mud than rain water, which is greasy, unctuous, and of a reddish colour.

The first strata of the earth is composed of this mud, mixed with perished vegetable or animal parts, or rather stony and sandy particles. 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. This is properly the residue of the powder, which the wind continually raises from the surface of the earth, and which falls again after having imbibed the humidity of the air. When the earth predominates, and the stony and sandy parts are but few, the earth is then reddish and fertile: if it is mixed with a considerable quantity of perished animal or vegetable substances, it is blackish, and often more fertile than the first; but if the mould is only in a small quantity, as well as the animal or vegetable parts, the earth is white and sterile, and when the sandy, stony, or cretaceous parts which compose these sterile lands, are mixed with a sufficient quantity of perished animal or vegetable substances, they form the black and lighter earths, but have little fertility; so that according to the different combinations of these three different matters, the land is more or less fecund and differently coloured.

To fix some ideas relative to these stratas; let us take, for example, the earth of Marly-la-ville, where the pits are very deep: it is a high country, but flat and fertile, and its strata lie arranged horizontally. I had samples brought me of all these strata which M. Dalibard, an able botanist, versed in different sciences, had dug under his inspection; and after having proved the matters of which they consisted in aquafortis, I formed the following table of them.

The state of the different beds of earth, found at Marly-la-ville, to the depth of 100 feet.

I have before said that I tried all these matters in aquafortis, because where the inspection and comparison of matters with others that we are acquainted with is not sufficient to permit us to denominate and range them in the class which they belong, there is no means more ready, nor perhaps more sure, than to try by aquafortis the terrestrial or lapidific matter: those which acid spirits dissolve immediately with heat and ebullition, are generally calcinable, and those on which they make no impression are vitrifiable.

By this enumeration we perceive, that the soil of Marly-la-ville was formerly the bottom of the sea, which has been raised above 75 feet, since we find shells at that depth below the surface. Those shells have been transported by the motion of the water, at the same time as the sand in which they are met with, and the whole of the upper strata, even to the first, have been transported after the same manner by the motion of the water, and deposited in form of a sediment; which we cannot doubt, as well by reason of their horizontal position, as of the different beds of sand mixed with shells and marl, the last of which are only the fragments of the shells. The last stratum itself has been formed almost entirely by the mould we have spoken of, mixed with a small part of the marl which was at the surface.

I have chosen this example, as the most disadvantageous to my theory, because it at first appears very difficult to conceive that the dust of the air, rain and dew, could produce strata of free earth thirteen feet thick; but it ought to be observed, that it is very rare to find, especially in high lands, so considerable a thickness of cultivateable earth; it is generally about three or four feet, and often not more than one. In plains surrounded with hills, this thickness of good earth is the greatest, because the rain loosens the earth of the hills, and carries it into the vallies; but without supposing any thing of that kind, I find that the last strata formed by the waters are thick beds of marl. It is natural to imagine that the upper stratum had, at the beginning, a still greater thickness, besides the thirteen feet of marl, when the sea quitted the land and left it naked. This marl, exposed to the air, melted with the rain; the action of the air and heat of the sun produced flaws, and reduced it into powder on the surface; the sea would not quit this land precipitately, but sometimes cover it, either by the alternative motion of the tides, or by the extraordinary elevation of the waters in foul weather, when it mixed with this bed of marl, mud, clay, and other matters. When the land was raised above the waters, plants would begin to grow, and it was then that the dust in the rain or dew by degrees added to its substance and gave it a reddish colour; this thickness and fertility was soon augmented by culture; by digging and dividing its surface, and thus giving to the dust, in the dew or rain, the facility of more deeply penetrating it, which at last produced that bed of free earth thirteen feet thick.

I shall not here examine whether the reddish colour of vegetable earth proceeds from the iron which is contained in the earths that are deposited by the rains and dews, but being of importance, shall take notice of it when we come to treat of minerals; it is sufficient to have explained our conception of the formation of the superficial strata of the earth, and by other examples we shall prove, that the formation of the interior strata, can only be the work of the waters.

The surface of the globe, says Woodward, this external stratum on which men and animals walk, which serves as a magazine for the formation of vegetables and animals, is, for the greatest part, composed of vegetable or animal matter, and is in continual motion and variation. All animals and vegetables which have existed from the creation of the world, have successively extracted from this stratum the matter which composes it, and have, after their deaths, restored to it this borrowed matter: it remains there always ready to be retaken, and to serve for the formation of other bodies of the same species successively, for the matter which composes one body is proper and natural to form another body of the same kind. In uninhabited countries, where the woods are never cut, where animals do not brouze on the plants, this stratum of vegetable earth increases considerably. In all woods, even in those which are sometimes cut, there is a bed of mould, of six or eight inches thick, formed entirely by the leaves, small branches, and barks which have perished. I have often observed on the ancient Roman way, which crosses Burgundy in a long extent of soil, that there is formed a bed of black earth more than a foot thick upon the stones, which nourishes very high trees; and this stratum could be composed only of a black mould formed by the leaves, bark, and perished wood. As vegetables inhale for their nutriment much more from the air and water than the earth, it happens that when they perish, they return to the earth more than they have taken from it. Besides, forests collect the rain water, and by stopping the vapours increase their moisture; so in a wood which is preserved a long time, the stratum of earth which serves for vegetation increases considerably. But animals restoring less to the earth than they take from it, and men making enormous consumption of wood and plants for fire, and other uses, it follows that the vegetable soil of inhabited countries must diminish, and become, in time, like the soil of Arabia Petrea, and other eastern provinces, which, in fact, are the most ancient inhabited countries, where only sand and salt are now to be met with; for the fixed salts of plants and animals remain, whereas all the other parts volatilise, and are transported by the air.

Let us now examine the position and formation of the interior strata: the earth, says Woodward, appears in places that have been dug, composed of strata placed one on the other, as so many sediments which necessarily fell to the bottom of the water; the deepest strata are generally the thickest, and those above the thinnest, and so gradually lessening to the surface. We find sea shells, teeth, and bones of fish in these different beds, and not only in those that are soft, as chalk and clay, but even in those of hard stone, marble, &c. These marine productions are incorporated with the stone, and when separated from them, leave the impressions of the shells with the greatest exactness. "I have been most clearly and positively assured," says this author, "that in France, Flanders, Holland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, stone, and other terrestrial substances are disposed in strata, precisely the same as they are in England; that these strata are divided by parallel fissures; that there are inclosed within stones and other terrestrial and compact substances, a great quantity of shells and other productions of the sea, disposed in the same manner as in this island. I am also informed that these strata are found the same in Barbary, Egypt, Guinea, and in other parts of Africa; in Arabia, Syria, Persia, Malabar, China, and the rest of the provinces of Asia; in Jamaica, Barbadoes, Virginia, New-England, Brazil, and other parts of America²⁰."

This author does not say how he learnt, or by whom he was told, that the strata of Peru contained shells; yet as in general his observations are exact, I do not doubt but he was well informed; and am persuaded that shells may be found in the earth of Peru, as well as elsewhere. This remark is made from a doubt having been formed some time since on the subject, and which I shall hereafter consider.

In a trench made at Amsterdam, to the depth of 230 feet, the strata were found as follows: 7 feet of vegetable earth, 9 of turf, 9 of soft clay, 8 of sand, 4 of earth, 10 of clay, 4 of earth, 10 of sand, then 2 feet of clay, 4 of white sand, 5 of dry earth, 1 of soft earth, 14 of sand, 8 of argil, mixed with earth; 4 of sand, mixed with shells; then clay 102 feet thick, and at last 31 feet of sand, at which depth they ceased digging²¹.

It is very singular to dig so deep without meeting with water: and this circumstance is remarkable in many particulars. 1. It shews, that the water of the sea does not communicate with the interior part of the earth, by means of filtration. 2. That shells are found at the depth of 100 feet below the surface, and that consequently the soil of Holland has been raised 100 feet by the sediment of the sea. 3. We may draw an induction, that this strata of thick clay of 102 feet, and the bed of sand below it, in which they dug to 31 feet, and whose entire thickness is unknown, are perhaps not very far distant from the first strata of the original earth, such as it was before the motion of the water had changed its surface. We have said in the first article, that if we desired to find the ancient earth, we should dig in the northern countries, rather than towards the south; in plains rather than in mountainous regions. The circumstances in this instance, appear to be nearly so, only it is to be wished they had continued the digging to a greater depth, and that the author had informed us, whether there were not shells and other marine productions, in the last bed of clay, and in that of sand below it. The experiment confirms what we have already said; and the more we dig, the greater thickness we shall find the strata.

The earth is composed of parallel and horizontal beds, not only in plains, but hills and mountains are in general composed after the same manner: it may be said, that the strata in hills and mountains are more apparent there than in the plains, because the plains are generally covered with a very considerable quantity of sand and earth, which the water has brought from the higher grounds, and therefore, to find the ancient strata, must dig deeper in the plains than in the mountains.

I have often observed, that when a mountain is level at its summit, the strata which compose it are also level; but if the summit is not placed horizontally, the strata inclines also in the same direction. I have heard that, in general, the beds of quarries inclined a little to the east; but having myself observed all the chains of rocks which offered, I discovered this opinion to be erroneous, and that the strata inclines to the same side as the hill, whether it be east, west, north, or south. When we dig stone and marble from the quarry, we take great care to separate them according to their natural position, and we cannot even get them of a large size, if we cut them in any other direction. Where they are made use of for good masonry, the workmen are particular in placing them as they stood in the quarry, for if they were placed in any other direction, they would split, and would not resist the weight with which they are loaded. This perfectly confirms that stones, are found in parallel and horizontal strata, which have been successively heaped one on the other, and that these strata composed masses where resistance is greater in that direction than in any other.

Every strata, whether horizontal or inclined, has an equal thickness throughout its whole extent. In the quarries about Paris the bed of good stone is not thick, scarcely more than 18 or 20 feet: in those of Burgundy the stone is much thicker. It is the same with marble; the black and white marble have a thicker bed than the coloured; and I know beds of very hard stone, which the farmers in Burgundy make use of to cover their houses, that are not above an inch thick. The different strata vary much in thickness, but each bed preserves the same thickness throughout its extent. The thickness of strata is so greatly varied, that it is found from less than a line to 1, 10, 20, 30, or 100 feet thick. The ancient and modern quarries, which are horizontally dug, the perpendicular and other divisions of mines, prove that there are extensive strata in all directions. "It is thoroughly proved," says the historian of the academy, "that all stones have formerly been a soft paste, and as there are quarries almost in every part, the surface of the earth has therefore consisted, in all these places, of mud and slime, at least to certain depths. The shells found in most quarries prove that this mud was an earth diluted by the water of the sea, and consequently that the sea covered all these places; and it could not cover them without also covering all that was level with or lower than it: and it is plain that it could not cover every place where there were quarries, without covering the whole face of the terrestrial globe. We do not here consider the mountains which the sea must also at one time have covered, since quarries and shells are often found in them.

"The sea," continues he, "therefore, covered the whole earth, and from thence it proceeds that all the beds of stone in the plains are horizontal and parallel; fish must have also been the most ancient inhabitants of the globe, as there was no sustenance for either birds or terrestrial animals." But how did the sea retire into these vast basins which it at present occupies? What presents itself the most natural to the mind is, that the earth, at least at a certain depth, was not entirely solid, but intermixed with some great vacuums, whose vaults were supported for a time, but at length, sunk in suddenly: then the waters must have fallen into these vacancies, filled them, and left naked a part of the earth's surface, which became an agreeable abode to terrestrial animals and birds. The shells found in quarries perfectly agree with this idea, for only the bony parts of fish could be preserved till now. In general, shells are heaped up in great abundance in certain parts of the sea, where they are immovable, and form a kind of rock, and could not follow the water, which suddenly forsook them: this is the reason that we find more shells than bones of the fish, and this even proves a sudden fall of the sea into its present basins. At the same time as our supposed vaults gave way, it is very possible that other parts of the globe were raised by the same cause, and that mountains were placed on this surface with quarries already formed, but the beds of these quarries could not preserve the horizontal direction they before had, unless the mountains were raised precisely perpendicular to the surface of the earth, which could happen but very seldom: so also, as we have already observed, in 1705, the beds of stone in mountains are always inclined to the horizon, though parallel with each other; for they have not changed their position with respect to each other, but only with respect to the surface of the earth²².

These parallel strata, these beds of earth and stone, which have been formed by the sediment of the sea, often extend to considerable distances, and we often find in hills, separated by a valley, the same beds and the same matters at the same level. This observation agrees perfectly with that of the height of the opposite hills. We may easily be assured of the truth of these facts, for in all narrow vallies, where rocks are discovered, we shall find the same beds of stone and marble on both sides at the same height. In a country where I frequently reside, I found a quarry of marble which extended more than 12 leagues in length, and whose breadth was very considerable, although I have never been able precisely to determine it. I have often observed that this bed of marble is throughout of the same thickness, and in hills divided from this quarry by a valley of 100 feet depth, and a quarter of a mile in breadth, I found the same bed of marble at the same height. I am persuaded it is the same in every stone and marble quarry where shells are found; but this observation does not hold good in quarries of freestone. In the course of this work, we shall give reasons for this difference, and describe why freestone is not dispersed, like other matters, in horizontal beds, and why it is in irregular blocks, both in form and position.

We have likewise observed that the strata are the same on both sides the straits of the sea. This observation, which is important, may lead us to discover the lands and islands which have been separated from the continent; it proves, for example, that England has been divided from France; Spain from Africa; Sicily from Italy; and it is to be wished that the same observation had been made in all the straits. I am persuaded that we should find it almost every where true. We do not know whether the same beds of stone are found at the same height on both sides the straits of Magellan, which is the longest; but we see, by the particular maps and exact charts, that the two high coasts which confine it, form nearly, like the mountains of the earth, correspondent angles, which also proves that the Terra del Fuega, must be regarded as part of the continent of America; it is the same with Forbisher's Strait and the island of Friesland, which appear to have been divided from the continent of Greenland.

The Maldivian islands are only separated by small tracts of the sea, on each side of which banks and rocks are found composed of the same materials; and these islands, which, taken together, are near 200 miles long, formed anciently only one land; they are now divided into 13 provinces, called Clusters. Each cluster contains a great number of small islands, most of which are sometimes overflowed and sometimes dry; but what is remarkable, these thirteen clusters are each surrounded with a chain of rocks of the same stone, and there are only three or four dangerous inlets by which they can be entered. They are all placed one after the other, and it evidently appears that these islands were formerly a long mountain capped with rocks²³.

Many authors, as Verstegan, Twine, Somner, and especially Campbell, in his Description of England, in the chapter of Kent, gives very strong reasons, to prove that England was formerly joined to France, and has been separated from it by an effort of the sea, which carried away the neck of land that joined them, opened the channel, and left naked a great quantity of low and marshy ground along the southern coasts of England. Dr. Wallis, as a corroboration of this supposition, shews the conformity of the ancient Gallic and British tongues, and adds many observations, which we shall relate in the following articles.

If we consider the form of lands, the position of mountains, and the windings of rivers, we shall perceive that generally opposite hills are not only composed of the same matters on the same level, but are nearly of an equal height. This equality I have observed in my travels, and have mostly found them the same on the two sides, especially in vallies that were not more than a quarter or a third of a league broad, for in vallies which are very broad, it is difficult to judge of the height and equality of hills, because, by looking over a level plain of any great extent, it appears to rise, and hills at a distance appear to lower; but this is not the place to give a mathematical reason for this difference. It is also very difficult to judge by the naked sight of the middle of a great valley, at least if there is no river in it; whereas in confined vallies our sight is less equivocal and our judgment more certain. That part of Burgundy comprehended between Auxerre, Dijon, Autun, and Bar-sur-seine, a considerable extent of which is called la Bailliage de la Montagne, is one of the highest parts of France; from one side of most of these mountains, which are only of the second class, the water flows towards the Ocean, and on the other side towards the Mediterranean. This high country is divided with many small vallies, very confined, and almost all watered with rivulets. I have a thousand times observed the correspondence of the angles of these hills and their equality of height, and I am certain that I have every where found the saliant angles opposite to the returning angles, and the heights nearly equal on both sides. The farther we advance into the higher country, where the points of division are, the higher are the mountains; but this height is always the same on both sides of the vallies, and the hills are raised or lowered alike. I have frequently made the like observations in many other parts of France. It is this equality in the height of the hills which forms the plains in the mountains, and these plains form lands higher than others. But high mountains do not appear so equal in height, most of them terminate in points and irregular peaks; and I have seen, in crossing the Alps, and the Apennine mountains, that the angles are, in fact, correspondent; but it is almost impossible to judge by the eye of the equality or inequality in the height of opposite mountains, because their summits are lost in mists and clouds.