166 Natural History. 



which the fire had reduced to the smallest parti- 

 cles, as sands, which are only portions of glass, 

 and above these pumice stones, and the dross of 

 melted matter, which gave rise to different clays. 

 The whole was covered with water to the depth 

 of five hundred, or six hundred feet. This water 

 deposited a stratum of mud, mixed with all those 

 materials which are capable of being sublimed or 

 exhaled by fire, and the air was formed of the 

 most subtle vapours, which, from their levity, rose 

 above the waters. 



Such was the condition of the earth, as Buffon 

 supposes, when the tides, the winds, and the heat 

 of the sun began to introduce changes on its sur- 

 face. The diurnal motion of the earth, and that 

 of the tides, elevated the waters in the equatorial 

 regions, and necessarily transported thither great 

 quantities of slime, clay, and sand; and by thus 

 elevating these parts of the earth, sunk those under 

 the poles about two leagues. The great inequa- 

 lities of the globe took place when it assumed its 

 form and consistence; swellings and blisters aris- 

 ing, as in the case of a block of glass or melted 

 matter. In the act of cooling it became fur- 

 rowed, and variously irregular. The vitrescent 

 matter of which the rock of the globe is com- 

 posed, and all the nuclei of mountains were pro- 

 duced by the primitive fire. The waters have only 

 formed the accessory strata, which surround the 

 nuclei horizontally, and in which are the relics of 

 shells, and other productions of the ocean. The 

 whole surface of the earth, therefore, as we now 

 behold it, was, at a period long subsequent to its 

 separation from the sun, covered by an ocean ; and 

 the waters forming this ocean probably remained 

 for a succession of ages on what are now inhabited 

 continents. Hence the remains of marine plants 

 and animals to be found in almost every part of 



