Sscred Theory of the Earth 59 CHAPTER FIVE A Sacred Theory of the Earth Whenever it is possible to find out the cause of what is happening, one should not have recourse to the gods. polybius Hooke was a bibliophile, and one of his favorite pastimes was attending book auctions. Occasionally he jotted down in his diaries the titles he had acquired and was reading. No book is mentioned more often in the later of his two diaries than Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth (i). Hooke's interest in this work must not be counted as yet another of his eccentricities. Shortly after the first Latin edition was published in 1681, Charles II asked Burnet to issue an English version, which appeared in 1684. In 1689 the Latin text was doubled in length, and in the following year this expanded version was printed in English. A sixth edition appeared in 1726, and Sacred Theory is still in print today. No one seems to have taken a neutral position toward Burnet. He was praised by Steele, Addison, and Wordsworth, and classed by some of his distinguished admirers as the peer of Plato, Cicero, and Milton. Coleridge proposed to recast Sacred Theory in blank verse, but never got around to the task. Some of the philosophes of the Enlightenment put him on a pedestal with Descartes and Newton. On the other hand, Swift, Pope, and Gay ridiculed Burnet's ideas. All this difference of opinion aside, some things seem clear. The Sacred Theory sparked a war between fundamentalist Christianity and natural science that still goes on in some quarters. This contest heightened interest in geology, and cost Burnet his career as churchman (2). Scriptural doctrines of Paradise and the Universal Deluge. Rea-uould be his first guide and if that should fall short, he would rL tor light in the Scriptures. Anticipating that some critics would tnt his engaging "the authority of Scripture in disputes about the lllural World, in opposition to Reason," he boldly asserted that no truth concerning the Natural World can be an Enemy to Religion; Truth cannot be an Enemy to Truth, God is not divided against bdf" (3). Beginning with the assumption that the earth was created out of los around 4000 b.C., Burnet reckoned that the Deluge occurred ■ in 1,600 years later. But from where did the water of the Floods Mnc? According to Burnet's arithmetic a body of water eight times Bi great as that in present oceans would be required to raise sea level iImivc the tops of the highest mountains. Not even the heaviest torrents tailing for forty days and nights could produce so much water. Nor are we to suppose that God created a superabundance of water fc>r the Flood and then annihilated the floodwater when it had done ■a work. Those who call on God to make things appear and disappear "make very bold with the Deity" (^). Those who would cut the knot of the problem by assuming that ihc Mood was only regional and not universal are denying the Mo-■lic account, Burnet cautioned. And if the hills of Judaea were overtopped, are we to imagine that the water stood as a great regional drop or a trembling jelly? (5) Since the Scriptures tell that the earth had a beginning and will have an end, Burnet's argument continued, we cannot accept the Aristotelian idea that the earth is eternal. We have only to look about Us to see that the form of the earth is changing. The higher parts tumble down during earthquakes, and wind and rain insensibly wear down the hills. "The Air alone, and the little drops of Rain have detae'd the strongest and the proudest monuments of the Greeks and Romans; and allow them but time enough, and they will of them-lelvcs beat down the Rocks into the Sea, and the Hills into the valleys" (6). Granted then that the form of the earth has changed since the beginning, and granted that the earth in its present shape is incapable of sustaining a universal deluge, what must the shape of the earth have been before the Flood? Burnet interpreted the first chapter of Genesis, which affirms that in the beginning the world was without form, to mean that the earth 6o chapter five Stuied Theory of the Earth 61 parts and particles of matter, mixt together, and floating in confusion, one with another" (7). The particles in such a mass would draw together to form a sphere, whose smooth surface would have been quite unlike the rough exterior the earth presents today. In this process of aggregation the heavier parts sank to the center of the earth and the lighter rose to the top, producing concentric shells of air and liquid around the solid core. 7 W -* m 1 ' ' ^li'llllPIIIIf'1 Thomas Burnet (Portrait from the 1734 edition of The Sacred Theory of the Earth) We must resist the temptation to compare the three concentric shells of Burnet's model with the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere of modern science. His "liquid shell" included not only ordinary water, but fat and oily liquids which rose to the top of that unit, so that it became divided into two parts: ordinary water below oily liquid above. Dust settling from the primeval atmosphere irtx incorporated in the oily shell, converting it into "a certain slime, fat, soft, and light Earth, spread upon the face of the Waters" (S). it these sedimentary particles accumulated they soaked up the oily juor, so that the outer liquid shell became firm, its surface suitable h>r habitation, its base resting upon a shell of water. These waters of the "deeps" would later form the world ocean, but when first ac-fftlimilated were all vaulted over with a universal layer of fertile land. In this smooth Earth were the first Scenes of the World, and the first de Derations of Mankind; it had the beauty of Youth and blooming Nature, fresh and fruitful, and not a wrinkle, scar or fracture in all its body; mi Rocks nor Mountains, no hollow Caves, nor gaping Chanels, but even ■ nil uniform all over. And the smoothness of the Earth made the face of • he Heavens so too; the Air was calm and serene; none of those tumultuary motions and conflicts of vapours, which the Mountains and the Winds cause in ours: 'Twas suited to a golden Age, and to the first in-nocency of Nature, (p) Because the axis of Burnet's paradisiacal earth was upright and not lilted, there were no seasons. In the habitable temperate zones "there ftvas neither Heat nor Cold, Winter nor Summer—every Season was • Seed-time to Nature, and every Season an Harvest." The fertile miiI, moistened by water drawn up from the oceanic shell below by the heat of the sun to settle as dew or to fall as mild showers, teemed I with the vital seeds of animals as well as plants. As Eve was the mother of all mankind, so the earth was a natural incubator, the "Great Mother" of all other living creatures. I hen, as a providential act of execution upon a sinful world, the •olid shell of the earth broke and fell into the shell of water below. Thus "the fountains of the Great Abysse were broken open" and the Universal Deluge overflowed all parts and regions of the broken earth. When the agitation of the Flood subsided, the waters retired to the lower places, leaving the upward-projecting fragments of the paradisiacal world standing in ruins as islands and continents. Burnet acknowledged that the Flood was an act of God, but in-listed that the divine will was served by natural causes. Providence left it to Reason to detect the causes. He conjectured that the heat of the sun caused the originally fertile shell of the earth to dry and crack, causing the waters below to boil and vaporize, and finally to ! wilnr is cast as the atheist, is made to proclaim: That all the books of Moses Were nothing but supposes; That he deserv'd rebuke, Sir, Who wrote the Pentateuch, Sir, 'Twas nothing but a sham. That as for father Adam, With Mrs. Eve his madam, And what the serpent spoke, Sir, 'Twas nothing but a Joke, Sir, And well-invented flam. (17) , According to King's editor, "Battle Royal" became popular and ■ras translated into Latin and several other languages. Many of the kbility and gentry sent presents to the author, making it evident iti.11 their sentiments were against having "the mysteries of our Holy Religion discussed and canvassed after so ludicrous a manner." Hornet failed in his diligent efforts to construct a history of the •irth wherein the principal events are attributed to natural causes, without at the same time doing violence to deeper meanings found beneath the bare words of the Scriptures. By the harshest judgment, hi\ science may seem as fantastic as his religion surely seemed he-"itical to many of his contemporaries—to borrow Bacon's adjectives, nevertheless the Burnet controversy aroused interest in geology and prompted others to try casting better theories of the earth. Friends •ml critics alike would remember Burnet's injunction that "we must Hot by any means admit or imagine, that all Nature, and this great Universe, was made only for the sake of Man, the meanest of all intelligent creatures we know of: Nor that this little Planet where we •ojourn for a few days, is the only habitable part of the Uniform. . . ."(18) I In the next century this concept of the immensity of the universe m space would be coupled with the idea of the vast extension of the < n ih in time. Hlinmed's Story 69 CHAPTER SIX TelliamecTs Story All the plains which lie between the seas and the mountains were once covered by the salt waters. leonardo da vinci In 1692, when the publication of Archaeologiae Philosophica inflamed the Burnet controversy, Benoit de Maillet, French diplomat and traveller, began composing a theory which among other matters held that the earth is more than two billion years old. Born in 1656 of a noble family of Lorraine, de Maillet's diplomatic career began with his appointment as Consul General in Egypt at age thirty-five. In 1708 he was named consul in Livorno, a post he held for seven years. Thereafter he served for five years as inspector of French establishments in the Levant and along the Barbary Coast. In 1720 he retired with royal pension from government service, and after spending two years in Paris moved to Marseilles where he died in 1738 at the age of eighty-two (1). In the course of his travels, de Maillet acquired a first-hand knowledge of the geography and geology of the lands around the Mediterranean. His skill with languages, both ancient and contemporary, provided access to Arabic and Western European writings on geography, geology, and cosmology. Combining some parts of what he had read with all that he had observed, he developed a coherent and unorthodox theory of earth history in which the dimension of time would approach the order of magnitude believed to be valid by modern scientists. To begin with, he turned away from the Mosaic account of Cre- wtit de Maillet (Portrait reproduced by permission of Albert V. Carozzi i the University of Illinois Press. © iy68 by the Board of Trustees of the university of Illinois Press) IHogony (2). Descartes had envisioned the material bodies of the universe as concentrated in a vast number of whirlpools, or vortices. Hunting in the center of each vortex is a burning star or sun with its irra\ of opaque bodies—planets and their satellites—revolving about tl \slies from the burning sun are propelled by the sun's rays toward the periphery of its vortex, gathering on their way dust and ■filer which accumulate on the planets. By this process the planets prow in size, and in due course develop watery envelopes of oceans through which dust and salt continue to settle. When the sun burns out and becomes a dark cindery body of low iiisity, one of two things may happen. The extinguished sun may hirl to the edge of the vortex, in which case the nearest planet will kc its place and flare into brightness as a new sun. Or the whole iriiv may disperse as a comet and spin away to join other vortices. 7o chapter six planets that have developed watery envelopes before their sun burned out may continue to receive water or may begin to lose water depending on their position in the new vortex. De Maillet accepted the Cartesian idea that the earth is an extinguished sun. At some former stage of development, he theorized, the solid earth was covered by a universal ocean. Over long periods of time the ocean has been losing water by evaporation into outer space. This process of drying will continue until at last the planet will ignite and become a sun again. De Maillet estimated that about five billion years would be required for a new sun to burn out and convert to a planet, be restored in mass by addition of water and solids, and be ignited again. Presumably these cycles of burning and renovation of heavenly bodies will go on forever (j). De Maillet cast his theory of the earth in the form of a dialog between two imaginary characters: a French missionary and an Indian philosopher named Telliamed (de Maillet spelled backward). His manuscript, entitled New System on the Diminution of the Waters of the Sea, is supposed to be the missionary's report on Telliamed's disclosures during lengthy conversations between the two at meetings in Cairo. We soon learn that studies of the diminution of the sea have been a family project for three generations. These studies began when Telliamed's grandfather observed that near the shore bordering his seaside home a rocky prominence which had been awash during his youth had emerged above sea level years later. This phenomenon prompted grandfather to examine the rocks of mountains far inland. In the strata forming these mountains he found sea shells, sufficient proof that the sea had formerly been more extensive. Moreover, the strata were not all of a kind but were distinguishable one from another by differences in composition and color. Thus they could not have been formed all in one instant, but must have accumulated layer by layer. So much for the strata and the fossils; how now were the mountains formed? To attack this problem grandfather invented gear for divers to explore the near-shore bottoms and map the directions of currents. Beyond that he designed a submarine for work at greater depths. The end result of these labors was the discovery that strong marine currents, moving in complicated patterns, are today heaping and molding sediment into sea mountains and valleys similar both in variety of contour and in magnitude to the mountains and valleys of TtllhimecTs Story 71 llu- bordering lands. Thus the mountains are formed on the bottom ol ilu- sea and later emerge in essentially their original form with the diminution of the waters. Voila! [ As for the origin and development of life Telliamed also had ready answers. When the summits of the current-built seamounts were admit to emerge above the level of the diminishing ocean, the seeds ol organisms began to germinate in warm shallows nearest the air. Seaweed flourished, and fish and shellfish multiplied. Remains of these organisms began to accumulate in new strata spread seaward ■by waves and currents. With the continued shrinking of the sea, shorelines of the emerging continents lengthened, marine life increased, and consequently the newer layers of offshore sediment been me more fossiliferous. This process of emergence of the continents building of seamounts from the sedimentary waste eroded from the shores will continue as long as there are lands to supply sediments and seas to receive them. Soitf Confronted with the problem of accounting for terrestrial life, Telliamed again turned to the sea for an answer. All life, plant and Ianimal, originated in sea water, he asserted. Fish gave rise to birds, animals that creep on the floor of the sea to animals that walk on the land, and seaweed to shrubs and trees. If flying fish marooned in reeds should transform to birds, their fins changing to wings, this Would be no more amazing, Telliamed reasoned, than the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly. By the same token elephant teals may have been the ancestors of elephants {4). Telliamed applied this same transformist theory to the origin of man. He relates mariners' tall tales of sighting sea-men and sea-Iromcn with tails like fishes but human-like from the waist up. These tritons and mermaids were as likely the descendants of seals as they are the ancestors of mankind (j). I low much time has elapsed since the first mountains appeared almvc the level of the diminishing sea? Telliamed's ingenious grand-fit her reasoned that knowing the height of the highest mountain and the secular rate at which sea level is lowering, an approximate an-■wer could be given. Accordingly he constructed near his home a hydrographic station designed to measure fluctuations in sea level. I Observations continued for more than 75 years indicated that sea level is falling at the rate of three inches per century (6). As confirmation, Telliamed cites the situation of a seaside fortress at Carthage. This edifice has basement openings evidently designed for the 72 chapter six TtHmmeďs Story 73 admission of sea water. But the base of these openings now stands five to six feet above sea level, which must have dropped by that amount in some 2,000 years (hence 3 to 3.6 inches per century). Similar situations at Alexandria and Acre supply the same results I (7)- With the continued shrinking of the ocean, Telliamed confidently predicts, present port cities will be left high and dry as they become inland cities. By the same token, certain ancient inland settlements, or their ruins, surely originated as seaports (r the next several years Buffon continued his studies privately, »1 in the law but in mathematics, botany, and medicine. By a fortu-Rltc circumstance, which is not documented, he met and became a Mend of the young second Duke of Kingston, who was travelling in france with his tutor. Late in 1730 he embarked on The Grand Tour with these English companions, travelling through France and $wit/.erland and across the Alps to Rome. The Duke travelled in a Hylc befitting his title, and through him Buffon learned some lessons In expensive living. Au commencement, Dieu crea les cieux et la terre. moise Au commencement, Dieu crea la matiere du ciel & de la terre. buffon In 1749, a year after Telliamed appeared in first edition, the first three volumes of Histoire Naturelle, Generate et Particuliere were published in Paris. The author was Georges-Louis Leclerc, then in his tenth year of service to Louis XV as Keeper of the Jardin du Roi. When appointed to this post he had been asked to catalog the collections of a natural history museum which was a part of the royal gardens. Once engaged in this curatorial work, he conceived the grand idea of preparing an encyclopedia that would treat all of nature—animal, vegetable, and mineral—in a systematic manner. Obviously too much for one man to accomplish, one would say; yet at the time of Leclerc's death 35 of a projected 50 volumes had been completed (/). In 1772 the author's name acquired the noble suffix comte de Buffon, by grace of the king. It is as Buffon and not as Leclerc that he is remembered as a prominent figure of the Enlightenment. Buffon was born in 1707 in the Burgundian town of Montbard. His father was an officer of government whose duties included administration of the salt tax. The family suddenly became wealthy in 1714 when his mother inherited a large estate from a brother who had prospered in service to the King of Sicily. Leclerc pere quickly proved himself equal to the task of spending his wife's money. He purchased the nearby lands and village of Buffon and a townhouse in Buffon Buffon's travels were briefly interrupted in the autumn of 1731 by the death of his mother. Little more than a year later his troubles increased when he learned that his father proposed to marry again, this time a woman who seemed ineligible on two counts: she was not wealthy, and she was only twenty-two years old. When he was unable to persuade his father that this union would sully the family name, he returned to Montbard to demand his share of the mother's So chapter seven ipochs of Nature 81 had urged him to acquire in the first place, to arrive at a settlement out of court, and at no greater cost than a mutual and undying alienation of affection. The settlement was handsome; in addition to a large sum in cash, he received the family real estate at Montbard and Buffon. During the seven years that elapsed between the time of his inheritance and his appointment as keeper of the royal gardens, Buffon gained in reputation as a scientist and at the same time added to his wealth through business ventures. On his lands in Burgundy he began investigating ways of growing improved grades of timber, for use both in programs of reforestation and in building tougher ships for the French Navy. Out of this venture grew a commercial tree nursery, which Buffon later sold to the government with the understanding that he would receive a salary as manager (3). At the hamlet of Buffon, he built an iron foundry, where among other articles cannons for the French army and navy and iron fences for the royal gardens were cast. The design of the factory reflected the style of the builder. Blast furnace, bellows, and other gear manned by up to 400 workmen were hidden behind an elegant fagade, and flanked by gardens. At a chapel in the main courtyard, services were held each Sunday (4). These business operations, while lucrative, did not prevent Buffon from pursuing studies of mathematics, physics, and zoology. His name was entered in the rolls of the Academie des Sciences in 1734, and five years later he was elected Associate Member in Botany. His silvaculture had paid a second dividend, this time in prestige. In addition to the three introductory volumes of Natural History published in 1749, Buffon was able to complete twelve volumes on mammals, nine on birds, and five on minerals, together with six lengthy supplements. The most famous of his scientific essays, Des Epoques de la Nature, appeared in the fifth supplementary volume, published in 1778. In the Epoques, Buffon attempted a synthesis of earth history from the beginning to the present, including the origin and development of life and a numerical estimate of the duration of geologic time that was outrageously long for his day (5). Buffon proposed that the planets of the solar system formed as a result of a collision between a comet and the sun. The shock of impact caused about 1/650 of the sun's mass to eject as a streamer of hot liquid and gaseous matter which separated into globular masses to «h« . I. m the planets. The planets spun off satellites, fell back toward the ft, and began their circles around it. Thus in the beginning the earth was a globe of molten material in nature of a siliceous magma. The globe cooled and solidified >m the surface inward. As cooling progressed the outer crust de-oped blisters, wrinkles, and cracks. These irregularities of sur-1. though negligible on a global scale, constituted a surface of high • t In 1 viewed in human perspective. Thus were formed the primitive ■Hiuntains and plateaus, which are part of the main body of the 1 11 ih and owe nothing to the action of water. I At one stage in the cooling of the earth the primitive siliceous trust was solid, but metallic substances with lower melting points ■fere still liquid. Near the surface these metallic materials pooled in ■vities, while at greater depths they vaporized and condensed along Vertical fissures in the already solid crust. By these processes of concentration were formed the primordial ore deposits, which owe nothing to the action of water. With further cooling a point in time was reached when water lupor could condense and fall as rain without steaming back into the atmosphere on striking the still-hot surface. Water began to gather in depressions over the earth's surface, first in the polar regions then ev-itrvwhere. In time water covered the whole earth, except for local hijjli prominences of the original crust. The work of water began. There followed a time of intense chemical activity involving the Interaction of air, earth, fire, and water. Charged with acids and •alts, water infiltrated and altered the dust and slag of the primitive crust. These surficial materials disintegrated or decomposed to form deposits of sand and clay. Clay, by various degrees of hardening, changed to shale, slate, and schist. Sand, clay, and their lithified derivatives constitute one class of rocks formed by the action of water upon the raw materials of the primitive earth. A second class of rocks made possible by water includes those which owe their origin to organisms. According to Buffon, lime-j atones and other calcareous strata are built of the whole, broken, or pulverized hard parts of shellfish. The occurrence of limestone in the I atratigraphically lower and hence older part of the stratigraphic column indicates that the universal ocean, once formed, was soon populated with innumerable shellfish. Sediments accumulating on the bed of the ocean were swept about by currents, variously generated by the tides, by the winds, or by 82 chapter seven Epochs of Nature 83 the rotation of the earth itself. These currents shaped the bottom sediments into relief features of the same kinds we see on the continents. Slowly the sediments hardened, and at the same time sea level fell by degrees. This retreat was due to episodic collapse of arches over the enormous caverns beneath the "blisters" of the primitive crust. With each such collapse, sea water rushed down to fill the cav-1 erns, the level of the sea fell by proportional amounts, and additional land emerged. Elevations and depressions, first shaped on the sea floor, thereby became the mountains and valleys of the land. Vegetable life appeared on land early in the emergent stages of the continents, as evidenced by coal beds in various parts of the world. The great forests of primitive times, weakened by age and battered by winds, were sources of wood which, transported by streams and ocean currents and mixed with pyritic materials, finally became buried in the bosom of the earth. These masses of buried combustible material would burst into flame upon contact with water, giving birth to volcanos both submarine and terrestrial. Because subterranean water is necessary for their eruption, volcanos rarely exist except near the sea. With retreat of the sea, the near-shore volcanos became inactive as new ones burst into action at lower levels. Thus most volcanos in the central parts of the continents are inactive or nearly so. At this juncture, sea level had stabilized at about its present position. The continents had emerged from the universal ocean, plastered with marine sediments molded into mountains and valleys. Over broad areas the sedimentary strata remained in their original nearly horizontal positions; but wherever the great subterranean caverns of the primitive earth had collapsed, the overlying strata were deformed. Water continued to work in its various ways. Underground water transported metallic mineral substances, concentrating them in secondary mineral deposits. Waves beat against the shores, destroying certain natural barriers such as those at Gibraltar and the Bosporus. A last major geologic event would take place before the earth would appear in its present form. This would be the formation of the Atlantic Ocean by foundering of the lands which until this time had joined North America and Eurasia as a single great continent. Since Buffon's evidence for this event was based on paleontology, it is appropriate here to consider his views on the origin and development of life. elements of all forms of life consist of "organic molecules." These »lccules are of two kinds: animal and vegetable. Both originated by action of heat on watery, oily, and "ductile" materials of the th, after the surface had cooled to a critical temperature favorable luch reaction. Because these molecules formed during one stage in secular cooling of the earth, they must be finite in number for it planet. And since other planets have passed or will pass through lilar critical stages of cooling, organic molecules have been or will produced on them also. In Buffon's view the first organisms to appear on earth were not imitive or simple, but as complex as any living today. Due to the jh temperatures prevailing at the time the organic molecules first mii to form, the generative forces of nature were particularly ac-J»fc. Giant ammonites appeared in the ocean soon after the waters jvcred the earth. Mammoths and rhinoceroses were early inhabi-ints of the emerging continents. These large beasts were adapted to higher temperature than their modern counterparts could endure, so they disappeared when the temperature fell below a point fehcy could tolerate. Fossilized remains of mammoths are found both in Eurasia and in North America. In Buffon's reasoning this meant that the two conti-tnts were formerly joined by a land bridge which has since sub-led beneath the waters of the Atlantic. Ruffon has sometimes been called a transformist, a forerunner of Darwin; but an analysis of his system shows that he was not. He maintained that terrestrial life originated in the north polar regions. I hese would have been the first to cool to the critical temperature required for formation of organic molecules. With continued cooling ot the polar area, the plants and animals adapted to a higher range of rmperature would migrate southward or else disappear. Migrating rganisms would leave behind quantities of unused organic mole-jles. These particles would aggregate into newer organisms adapted k a more severe climate; and the new crop in turn would seek survival by southward migration as the temperature continued to fall. Thus the successive biotas spontaneously generated in the north-lands were not kin to each other, only sequential and formed from the same matter. Ruffon accorded man a special place in the natural order. Taking a cue from Descartes, he distinguished man from other organisms by his gift of reason; and reason is not matter. Granted that man is the «4 chapter seven Epochs of Nature «5 conquest; but he is not sovereign by divine law, he is not the purpose of Creation. Moreover life and thought are not confined to this planet alone but must be present on others throughout the vast universe. Buffon divided the history of the earth into seven "epochs." This division is somewhat arbitrary and was not essential to his system. Evidently he hoped that the number seven would make less difficult a reconciliation of his history with the creation epic of Genesis. ^Buffon's first epoch spanned the time when the earth was a globe of molten material. During the second epoch the earth consolidated, and the primordial features of relief and structure developed on its surface in the form of blisters, wrinkles, and cracks. The third epoch was the time when the ocean formed and life appeared. During the fourth epoch the waters withdrew from the continents and volcanos became active. Elephants and other kinds of animals which at present live in warm climates populated the northern parts of the continents during the fifth epoch. The major physical event of the sixth epoch was the separation of the American and Eurasian continents. The seventh epoch is the Age of Man, the time when man acquired dominion over nature in the senses of understanding her workings, exploiting natural resources, and in various ways modifying the natural scene. The problem now was to estimate the time required for the earth to cool from its original state of fusion to its present temperature. Having thus calculated the age of the earth, the duration of the several epochs could be estimated as fractions of this total. In his search for numbers to measure the age of the earth in years, Buffon set up an experiment in his iron foundry. He had his workmen fashion ten balls of iron graduated in diameter by half-inches up to a maximum of five inches. These balls were heated to near the melting point. Then he measured the time required for each ball to cool, first to the point that it could be touched without burning the fingers, and then to the point that the temperature was the same as that of the air in a nearby cave. These experiments showed that with each increase of a half-inch in diameter, the time required for cooling to the first point increased by 12 minutes, and for cooling to cave temperature by 54 minutes. With a bold extrapolation he calculated that a globe of molten iron the size of the earth would require 49,964 years and 221 days to cool to the point that it would not burn the hand when touched; and 96,670 years and 132 days for the tempera- 10 fall to the present temperature of the earth. In other calcula-ms Buffon arrived at a figure of 4,026 years for a globe of the same tc to pass from a molten to a consolidated condition. Buffon repeated the experiments in cooling, this time using mix-ircs of metallic and non-metallic substances more like the actual imposition of the earth. He made corrections in his figures to allow retardation in cooling due to the heat that the earth would receive the sun. To follow him through all of his arithmetic would be irsome: the key figures he finally published are the following: ■D36 years for the earth to consolidate from a molten condition; 17,500 years for cooling before the earth could be safely touched; and Bf.ooo years for the earth to cool to its present temperature. These figures are not cumulative: according to Buffon the earth uas 75,000 years old in the 18th century a.d. Interpolating between the above figures, he estimated that the oceans formed and life appeared when the earth was about 35,000 years old, that the stabilization of sea level took place at between 50,000 and 55,000 years, that the mammoths appeared in Siberia around year 60,000, that the continents separated around year 65,000, and that the southward migration of elephants ended at year 70,000 (6). This published chronicle was actually Buffon's "short version." In manuscripts which were not publicized until the nineteenth century, he opted for a much longer scale of time. Among other considerations he was impressed with the length of time that must have been required for thick sequences of limestone strata to form. Not centuries, he conjectured, but centuries of centuries must be required for the growth of shellfish, their accumulation as entire shells or fragments in successive strata, and their hardening to form the rocks we nee in our quarries. Buffon estimated that the rate of deposition of mud in the seas of today averages less than five inches a year. Thus a single formation of clay 6,000 feet thick would have required more than 14,000 years to accumulate. Buffon was no field geologist, but he must certainly have been impressed by the enormous thickness of sedimentary rocks he saw when crossing the Alps on his grand tour. Of the several "long chronologies" found in the unpublished manuscripts, the longest one estimates the age of the earth at nearly three million years, and would have life appear after the planet was In-tween 700,000 and a million years old (7). Internal evidence 86 chapter seven Tlx Epochs of Nature 87 strongly suggests that Buffon favored the longer version. Why, then, did he elect to publish the shorter? Surely not to appease the theologians, who would have considered the proposed 75,000 years for the age of the earth as much a departure from Scriptural truth as 3,000,000. The best guess is that he thought the lower figure was about as much as the traffic would bear. His readers simply would I not be prepared to contemplate le sombre abime of time plumbed in millions of years. Natural History made Buffon famous, not only as a scientist but also as a literary figure. His election to the Academie Franchise in 1753 came as recognition of his accomplishments as stylist, and his Essay on Style is still highly regarded. "Style is the man himself," Buffon declared in a phrase often quoted. The reference of course is to literature, but in the case of this man the meaning could also apply to style of living. Though already an international figure in his middle years, and wealthy too, he continued to be self-disciplined and industrious. In 1767 Buffon acquired financial control of his encyclopedia and so became his own publisher. This must have been a sound investment, because Natural History became a popular work during and after his lifetime. One can count fifty-two complete editions in French, and a total of twenty others translated into German, Italian, English, Spanish, and Dutch (8). Buffon was less successful in his family affairs. When he was forty-five years old he followed his father's example by marrying a woman of twenty who brought no dowry with her. For his only son, born in 1764, he provided the best in training and polite upbringing that money and social connections could afford. Unfortunately, the boy was not equipped to carry on the intellectual tradition of the father. "Buffonet," as he was nicknamed, has been described as a crackbrain and rakehell. He did manage to marry into high society, but his wife had a scandalous affair with the Duke of Orleans. At age 30 he was guillotined, a victim of the French Revolution. In 1788 Buffon died at his apartment in Paris. Buffon once observed that the scientific study of nature required of the investigator two opposite qualities of mind: the ability to conceive the whole grand picture at a glance, and the capability of focusing patiently upon a single aspect of the whole (p). Most certainly he qualified on the first count: his vision of the history of nature was panoramic, and he conveyed it with consummate skill and grace. 1 As for focusing upon a single aspect of the whole, he was content to glean most of his facts from the literature and from personal correspondence. Let others provide the bricks; he would design and build the edifice! Officials of the French colonies supplied information on [remote parts of the world. Others of his better known corre-Ipondents included Catherine the Great of Russia, the Kings of Den-111.11L, Poland, Sweden, and Prussia, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson (10). Buffon had a serene confidence in the power of scientific reasoning. His basic assumption was that nature is rational, product of a rational Creator. Hence nature can be understood. He could foresee no limits to human understanding of the universe. We begin our interrogation of nature, he argued, by comparing like things and ■vents. Anything unique, unrelated to anything else, is beyond comprehension. Thus God is incomprehensible, because unique. Appealing to God to explain natural phenomena is a form of mental laziness, as pretending to understand God's designs is a symptom of human weakness. Science must deal solely with secondary causes, never with those primary causes which are God's will. Hence acience is concerned with the how of secondary causes, not with the divine why. In attempting to establish the sequence of changes the earth has undergone since its beginning, Buffon held that the scientist should appeal to those ordinary causes of change that are in operation today ■//). Invoking extraordinary or catastrophic causes leads to the invention of groundless hypotheses, he warned. He dismissed as wild land romantic speculations Woodward's Deluge which was supposed to have dissolved all the rocks of the earth's crust, and Whiston's comet which opened the floodgates of the Abyss. The just reward of the scientist's labors, Buffon concluded, is to perceive the simplicity and economy of means by which natural forces have shaped the earth. The basic operations of nature, he k-lieved, are few in number, involving force, motion, chemical reaction, heat, and vital energy. He placed great emphasis on force as an underlying cause of change. Force, he reasons, is the result of the mutual attraction between bodies which produces motion; chemical reaction the result of attractions between the smaller particles of matter; and life itself the result of attractions of small particles combining under the influence of heat to form organic molecules. These sentiments were displeasing to the Faculty of Theology at 88 chapter seven the University of Paris. In 1751, two years after the first volumes of Natural History appeared, Buffon escaped censure at the hands of the theologians only by dismissing his theory for the origin of the planets as "pure philosophical speculation" (12). In writing the Epoques j Buffon tried to forestall any additional threat of censure by explaining how his theory was not actually contrary to Christian dogma. His exegesis is all one would expect of genius artfully at work on an insoluble problem (13). The first verse of Genesis, he argued, should be interpreted to read: "In the beginning God created the materials of Heaven and Earth": all else would follow according to the laws governing matter and energy. The theologians were not pleased, but their investigations stopped short of censure, apparently at the suggestion of the King (14). Through his writings Buffon aroused popular interest in natural science. Beyond that he was the first to undertake geophysical experiments in the search for numbers to measure the age of the earth. In so doing he broke with the prevailing Biblical chronology which compressed earth history within a time frame of a few millennia, and offered instead a chronicle calibrated in tens and scores of thousands of years. In this respect the Epoques were epochal. So was the author, at least in the view of one admirer. Qu'il soit beni le jour qui vit naitre Buffon! Buffon sera, chez la race future, Pour les amis du vrai, du beau, de la raison Une epoque de la nature. (15) gueneau de monte be ill a rd , 1778 CHAPTER EIGHT View from the Brink The abyss from which the man of science should recoil is that of ignorance .... james hutton In 1788, the year of Buffon's death, James Hutton's Theory of the trth appeared in Volume I of the Transactions of the Royal Society of imburgh. The ideas expressed in that long essay, together with the author's later elaborations of them, are considered by many to mark the beginning of modern geology. Hutton emphasized the work of •trcams in shaping the surface of the land. He recognized the signifi-ice of angular unconformities between two sequences of strata as n . ording successive events of deposition, deformation, erosion, and burial. Through his own field observations he established the igneous origin of granite and basalt. In constructing his theory he appealed to processes currently in action, as causes sufficient to account for past changes on the earth. Thus he held that most valleys have been formed through protracted erosion by the streams that now occupy them, not by some catastrophic flood. He proposed that in the past whole continents have been leveled by the day-to-day action of Waves and running water. The time required for this decay of the continents would necessarily be vast; but this was of no concern to Hutton, who steadfastly believed that geologic time is virtually infinite in duration. Any young scholar who suffers pangs of anxiety concerning the choice of a suitable career should take heart from the story of James Hutton, who changed his course three times and was sixty-two years