OPINIONS OF VOLTAIRE AND LAPLACE REGARDING GEOLOGY. 319 
others rather more. However heavy, opaque, or smooth, a pebble- 
flint maybe, it is drilled with holes;’ and Yoltaire thinks that in- 
sects might occujiy the million holes. ‘ It is an assemblage of 
homogeneous matters which produces an indestructible mass to 
the hammer. It is verifiable by long- continued heat in a 
furnace, and then it is observed that its constituent parts are a 
kind of crystal. But what force has joined these little crystals?’ 
‘ The attraction demonstrated to exist between the sun and the 
planets, between the earth and its satellite, — does it act between 
all the particles of the earth whilst it penetrates to the centre 
of the whole globe ? Is this the first principle of the cohesion 
of bodies ?’ Yoltaire notices that the Alps and other mountains 
contain many kinds of rocks, and addresses himself to show that 
a small quantity of vinegar will dissolve in the laboratory small 
portions of some of the rocks ; therefore Hannibal did dissolve 
an escarpment which stopped the way ; he states, in fact, that 
every child can make the experiment of Hannibal. 
Ever wrong, from his inability to grasp the evidences of 
upheaval and subsidence in relation to a datum line, Yoltaire 
argues against the value of shells found remote from the sea 
proving any former aspect of nature. He believed that what 
were found were of fresh- water kinds, and remarking on the 
immense number of snails that infest parts of France, demurs 
to accept the theory of Indian migration. But he makes a re- 
mark which will interest some amongst us : 4 They discovered, 
or thought they did, some years ago, the bones of reindeer 
and of hippopotamus near Etampes ; and hence it was 
concluded that the Nile and Lapland were formerly on the 
road from Paris to Orleans. But we may rather suspect that 
some lover of the curious formerly had these skeletons in his 
cabinet. A hundred parallel examples invite us to examine 
before believing.’ 
Yoltaire wrote also on the shells of Touraine, a criticism of 
Buffon’s really philosophical views of change in Nature, and 
indulged in some very remarkable observations on the nature 
of the scale of animated beings, and about corals. 
Laplace, so well known to us by his great labours regarding 
the figure of the earth, treats the geology of his day — the 
early part of this century — in an astronomical manner. He 
antagonized some of the vulgar errors regarding the great depth 
of the ocean which were put forward in his day, and which 
lasted until a comparatively late date. His proofs were mathe- 
matical and related to the laws of the rotation of homogeneous 
and non-homogeneous spheres of the dimensions of the earth. 
It was believed that the ocean was not to be fathomed in many 
parts, and even the continuity of the sea, through the whole 
mass of the globe, from one side to the other, had its advocates. 
