384 O. ©. Marsh—History and Methods of — 
reducing all to a level, will at last deliver the whole land over 
to the sea, and the sea successively prevailing over the land, 
will leave dry new continents like po we inhabit.” 
Buffon was politely requested by the college to recant, and 
having no particular desire to: be a martyr to science, submitted 
the following declaration, which he was required to publish in 
his next work: “I declare that I had no intention to contra- 
dict the text of Scripture ; that I believe most firmly all 
therein related about the creation, both as to order of time and 
matter of fact; and I abandon park kee in my book respect- 
ing the formation of the earth, and, generally, all which may 
be contrary to the narration of Moses.” 
land” appeared in 1729. This work ‘was based on a systematie — 
collection of fossils which he had brought together, and which 
subsequently bequeathed to the University of Cambride® 
where it is still preserved, with his arrangement carefully 
. This descriptive part of this work is interesting, but 
usions are made to coincide strictly with the Scripture 
He had previously stated, 
In anc “the whole terrestrial globe 
to have been taken to pieces and dissolved at the flood, and the 
strata to have settled down from this promiscuous mass.” In 
support “Marine bodies are lodged 
