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

This immense globe exhibits upon its surface heights, depths, plains, seas, lakes, marshes, rivers, caverns, gulphs, and volcanos; and upon the first view of these objects we cannot discover in their dispositions either order or regularity. If we penetrate into its internal part, we shall there find metals, minerals, stones, bitumens, sands, earths, waters, and matters of every kind, placed as it were by chance, and without the smallest apparent design. Examining with a more strict attention, we discover sunk mountains, caverns filled, rocks split and broken, countries swallowed up, and new islands rising from the ocean; we shall also perceive heavy substances placed above light ones, hard bodies surrounded with soft; in short, we shall there find matter in every form, wet and dry, hot and cold, solid and brittle, mixed in such a sort of confusion as to leave room to compare them only to a mass of rubbish and the ruins of a wrecked world.

We inhabit these ruins however with a perfect security. The various generations of men, animals, and plants, succeed each other without interruption; the earth produces fully sufficient for their subsistence; the sea has its limits; its motions and the currents of air are regulated by fixed laws: the returns of the seasons are certain and regular; the severity of the winter being constantly succeeded by the beauties of the spring: every thing appears in order, and the earth, formerly a CHAOS, is now a tranquil and delightful abode, where all is animated, and regulated by such an amazing display of power and intelligence as fills us with admiration, and elevates our minds with the most sublime ideas of an all-potent and wonderful Creator.

Let us not then draw any hasty conclusions upon the irregularities of the surface of the earth, nor the apparent disorders in the interior parts, for we shall soon discover the utility, and even the necessity of them; and, by considering them with a little attention, we shall, perhaps, find an order of which we had no conception, and a general connection that we could neither perceive nor comprehend, by a slight examination: but in fact, our knowledge on this subject must always be confined. There are many parts of the surface of the globe with which we are entirely unacquainted, and have but partial ideas of the bottom of the sea, which in many places we have not been able to fathom. We can only penetrate into the coat of the earth; the greatest caverns and the deepest mines do not descend above the eight thousandth part of its diameter, we can therefore judge only of the external and mere superficial part; we know, indeed, that bulk for bulk the earth weighs four times heavier than the sun, and we also know the proportion its weight bears with other planets; but this is merely a relative estimation; we have no certain standard nor proportion; we are so entirely ignorant of the real weight of the materials, that the internal part of the globe may be a void space, or composed of matter a thousand times heavier than gold; nor is there any method to make further discoveries on this subject; and it is with the greatest difficulty any rational conjectures can be formed thereon.

We must therefore confine ourselves to a correct examination and description of the surface of the earth, and to those trifling depths to which we have been enabled to penetrate. 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. This motion we know has existed from the commencement of time, and will continue as long as the sun and moon, which are the causes of it.

By an examination of the bottom of the sea, we discover that to be fully as irregular as the surface of the earth; we there find hills and vallies, plains and cavities, rocks and soils of every kind: we there perceive that islands are only the summits of vast mountains, whose foundations are at the bottom of the Ocean; we also find other mountains whose tops are nearly on a level with the surface of the water, and rapid currents which run contrary to the general movement: they sometimes run in the same direction, at others, their motions are retrograde, but never exceeding their bounds, which appear to be as fixed and invariable as those which confine the rivers of the earth. In one part we meet with tempestuous regions, where the winds blow with irresistible fury, where the sea and the heavens equally agitated, join in contact with each other, are mixed and confounded in the general shock: in others, violent intestine motions, tumultuous swellings, water-spouts, and extraordinary agitations, caused by volcanos, whose mouths though a considerable depth under water, yet vomit fire from the midst of the waves, and send up to the clouds a thick vapour, composed of water, sulphur, and bitumen. Further we perceive dreadful gulphs or whirlpools, which seem to attract vessels, merely to swallow them up. On the other hand, we discover immense regions, totally opposite in their natures, always calm and tranquil, yet equally dangerous; where the winds never exert their power, where the art of the mariner becomes useless, and where the becalmed voyager must remain until death relieves him from the horrors of despair. In conclusion, if we turn our eyes towards the northern or southern extremities of the globe, we there perceive enormous flakes of ice separating themselves from the polar regions, advancing like huge mountains into the more temperate climes, where they dissolve and are lost to the sight.

Exclusive of these principal objects the vast empire of the sea abounds with animated beings, almost innumerable in numbers and variety. Some of them, covered with light scales, move with astonishing celerity; others, loaded with thick shells, drag heavily along, leaving their track in the sand; on others Nature has bestowed fins, resembling wings, with which they raise and support themselves in the air, and fly to considerable distances; while there are those to whom all motion has been denied, who live and die immoveably fixed to the same rock: every species, however, find abundance of food in this their native element. The bottom of the sea, and the shelving sides of the various rocks, produce great abundance of plants and mosses of different kinds; its soil is composed of sand, gravel, rocks, and shells; in some parts a fine clay, in others a solid earth, and in general it has a complete resemblance to the land which we inhabit.

Let us now take a view of the earth. What prodigious differences do we find in different climates? What a variety of soils? What inequalities in the surface? but upon a minute and attentive observation we shall find the greatest chain of mountains are nearer the equator than the poles; that in the Old Continent their direction is more from the east to west than from the north to south; and that, on the contrary, in the New World they extend more from north to south than from east to west; but what is still more remarkable, the form and direction of those mountains, whose appearance is so very irregular, correspond so precisely, that the prominent angles of one mountain are always opposite to the concave angles of the neighbouring mountain, and are of equal dimensions, whether they are separated by a small valley or an extensive plain. I have also observed that opposite hills are nearly of the same height, and that, in general, mountains occupy the middle of continents, islands, and promontories, which they divide by the greatest lengths.