Buffon's Natural History, Volume 01 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Mineral, &c. &cBuffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
History
Buffon's Natural History, Volume 01 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Mineral, &c. &c
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
Natural history
After having read the proofs which the following articles contain, it
may be determined, whether I was wrong to assert, that these
circumstances solidly established also ascertains the truth of the
theory of the earth. What I have said on the formation of mountains has
no need of a more ample explanation; but as it might be objected that I
do not assign a reason for the formation of the peaks or points of
mountains, no more than for some other particular circumstances, shall
add the observations and reflections which I have made on this subject.
I have endeavoured to form a clear and general idea of the manner in
which the different matters that compose the earth are arranged, and it
appears to me they may be reduced into two general classes; the first
includes all the matters we find placed in strata, or beds horizontally
or regularly inclined; and the second comprehends all matters formed in
masses, or in veins, either perpendicular or irregularly inclined. In
the first class are included sands, clays, granite, flints, free-stone,
coals, slates, marls, chalks, calcinable stones, marbles, &c. In the
second I rank metals, minerals, crystals, precious stones and small
flints: these two classes generally comprehend all the known materials
of the earth. The first owe their origin to the sediments carried away
and deposited by the sea, and should be distinguished into those which
being assayed in the fire, calcine and are reduced into lime, and those
which fuse and are convertible into glass. The materials of the second
class are all vitrifiable excepting those which the fire entirely
consumes by inflammation.
In the first class we distinguish two kinds of sands; the one, which is
more abundant than any other matter of the globe, is vitrifiable, or
rather is only fragments of actual glass; the other, whose quantity is
much less, is calcinable, and must be looked upon as the powder of
stone, and which differs only from gravel by the size of the grains. The
vitrifiable sand is, in general, deposited in beds, which are often
interrupted by masses of free-stone, granite, and flint; and sometimes
these matters are also in banks of great extent.
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