i The Cosmogonists Buff on n 



The third epoch included the time when the sea stood 

 from 9000 to 12,000 feet higher than it does now, as was 

 supposed to be indicated by the heights at which marine 

 organisms are found in the rocks. It was then that the 

 calcareous fossiliferous formations were formed, which 

 constitute so much of the present dry land. 



The fourth epoch witnessed the emergence of the lower 

 part of the land, owing to the sinking of the waters through 

 cracks into cavities in the interior of the globe. Pro- 

 foundly as Buffon had meditated on the structure of the 

 earth, he had thus during thirty years made no advance in 

 his views of the origin of the dry land. 



The fifth epoch was marked by the advent of huge 

 pachyderms elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses, 

 which, though now confined to warm regions, then 

 wandered far into the north. 



The sixth epoch saw the separation of the two con- 

 tinents which, as was inferred from the presence in each 

 of them of what were believed to be the same fossil 

 mammals, were originally united. 



Buffon added a seventh epoch, in which he traced the 

 commanding influence of man in modifying the surface of 

 the earth. 



Eecognizing the powerful agency of rivers and the sea 

 in washing away the materials of the land, he believed 

 that by this action the whole of the existing continents 

 will finally be reduced and covered by the ocean ; and he 

 conceived that by the same series of changes new lands 

 will ultimately be formed. 



For breadth and grandeur of conception Buffon far sur- 

 passed the earlier writers who had promulgated theories 



