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
But have not the condensations of the planets some relation with the
quantity of the heat of the sun which they sustain? If so, Saturn, which
is the most distant from that luminary, will have suffered little or no
condensation; and Jupiter will be condensed from 90-11/16 to 94-1/2. Now
the heat of the sun in Jupiter being to that of the sun upon the earth
as 14-17/22 are to 400, the condensations ought to be in the same
proportion. For instance, if Jupiter be condensed, as 90-11/16 to
94-1/2, and the earth had been placed in his orbit, it would have been
condensed from 206-7/8 to 215-990/1451, but the earth being nearer the
sun, and receiving a heat, whose relation to that which Jupiter receives
is from 400 to 14-17/22, the quantity of condensation it would have
experienced on the orbit of Jupiter by the proportion of 400 to
14-17/22, which gives nearly 234-1/3 for the quantity which the earth
would be condensed. Its density was 206-7/8, by adding the quantity of
its acquired condensation, we find 400-7/8 for its actual density, which
nearly approaches the real density 400, determined to be so by the
parallax of the moon. As to other planets, I do not here pretend to give
exact proportions, but only approximations, to point out that their
densities have a strong relation to their velocity in their respective
orbits.
The comet, therefore, by its oblique fall upon the surface of the sun,
having driven therefrom a quantity of matter equal to the 650th part of
its whole mass; this matter, which must be considered in a liquid state,
will at first have formed a torrent, the grosser and less dense parts of
which will have been driven the farthest, and the smaller and more
dense, having received only the like impulsion, will remain nearest its
source; the force of the sun's attraction would inevitably act upon all
the parts detached from him, and constrain them to circulate around his
body, and at the same time the mutual attraction of the particles of
matter would form themselves into globes at different distances from the
sun, the nearest of which necessarily moving with greater rapidity in
their orbits than those at a distance.
But another objection may be started, and it may be said, if the matter
which composes the planets had been separated from the sun, they, like
him, would have been burning and luminous bodies, not cold and opaque,
for nothing resembles a globe of fire less than a globe of earth and
water; and by comparison, the matter of the earth and planets is
perfectly different from that of the sun?
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