The Earth and its Early History 



been detached from the Sun by the collision of that body 

 with a comet, and though we can no longer, from our 

 knowledge of the nature of comets, believe such a 

 collision sufficient for the purpose, we cannot but admire 

 the man who first attempted to explain the Solar System 

 on mechanical principles. 



When he came to the question of fossils, however, 

 he was in difficulties inasmuch as he had no conception 

 of a force capable of raising the sea-floor above the 

 waters, and so he arrived independently at the same 

 conclusion as Leibnitz that the waters had passed into 

 the interior. 



He divided the Earth's history into seven epochs 

 during which the mass torn from the Sun first assumed 

 the spheroidal form and then, having solidified, gradually 

 passed from stage to stage until the present conditions 

 came into existence. 



The Faculty of Theology of the Sorbonne compelled 

 Buffon to publish a retraction of his Theory of the 

 Earth, but once men have been set thinking on such 

 lines it is futile to attempt to restrain them ; progress 

 may be hindered, but the fruit will ripen in due time. 



Important work was being carried on about the same 

 period by Jean Etienne Guettard, who was born near 

 Paris in 1715 and who in his youth worked with his 

 grandfather, an apothecary. His interest in natural 

 history, which was early manifested, caused his grand- 

 father to allow him to become a doctor of medicine, and 

 he afterwards travelled extensively as a member of the 

 suite of the Duke of Orleans. 



His first study was botany, which he pursued both 

 in the country near his home and also at the Jardin 



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