214 Natural History, [Chap. Ill, 



cjuced metals; the rest remaining on the surface, 

 and giving rise to vegetable mould, with more or 

 less of animal and vegetable particles. Thus the 

 interior parts of the globe were originally composed 

 pf vitrified matter, and they continue so at present. 

 Above these w^ere placed tliose bodies which the 

 fire had reduced to the smallest particles, 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 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 subtile vapours, which, 

 from their levity, rose above the w^aters. 



Such w^as the condition of the earth, as Buffon 

 supposes, w^hen 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 tw^o leagues. The great inequalities 

 of the globe took place when it assumed its form 

 and consistence ; swellings and blisters arising, as 

 in the case of a block of glass or melted m?ctter. In 

 the act of cooling, it became furrowed, and vari- 

 ously irregular. The vitrescent matter of v;hich 

 the rock of the globe is composed, and all the nu- 

 clei of mountains were produced by the primitive 

 fire. Tlie waters have only formed the accessory 

 strata, which surround the nuclei horizontally, and 



