nes. XIX. The idea of Franklin, who makes every thing to origi- BOOK nate from air, had been broached by Anaximenes of Miletus, whose opinions are without doubt misrepresented by System of the contracted minds of those who accuse him of atheism.* AnaximeThe Greeks did not rest satisfied with these general systems; they formed hypotheses of a more definite character, founded upon facts supplied by the physical geography of the countries then known. The flowing out of the lakes or marshy pools which covered Thessaly before the formation, or rather before the enlargement, of the valley of Tempe, suggested the idea, that all the inland seas, and specially the Pontus-Euxinus, or Black Sea, had been originally inclosed lakes, to which some violent revolution had opened an outlet. Xanthus and Strato having observed that the soil of Upper Asia contained sea shells, justly concluded that these countries had been covered with sea water; but when Strato attempts to explain this phenomenon, which is common to all the globe, by supposing a local cause, by the existence of an ancient inland sea, formed by the union of the Pontus Euxinus with the Caspian, he falls into one of those paralogisms which appear to be almost hereditary in the pretended science of geology. We shall prove, in the proper place, that such an inland sea has not existed since the commencement of historical times. The general revolutions which may have been caused by the breaking up of the great lakes and interior seas, must have taken place long before the existence of the human race; and the deluges that have been occasioned by a derangement of the sea, belong to an age far beyond the reach of history. This is completely proved by the occurrence of animal remains. But the soil of Greece, from its very nature, must have frequently given way and sunk Plut. de Placit. Stob. i. c. August. de Civ. Dei, viii. 2. Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. Herod. vii. 129, 130. Strab. ix. 667. Almel. Lucan, vi. 364, &c. See above, Book XII. near the end. BOOK XIX. Whether been any pure Vul Greece. attraction or affinity, mechanical precipitation and deposition, and, at last, coagulation and consolidation. The number of Grecian, philosophers who attribute the there have origin of the earth exclusively to elementary fire, does not seem to have been considerable; for we cannot affirm canists in that such was the opinion of Pythagoras, although he looked upon the soul of all beings as a particle of divine fire. The obscure Heraclitus was the first who said, that "fire had formed all things, and could destroy all."* The stoics, according to Cicero, should have been of this opinion, but Seneca declares, on the contrary, that they regarded water as the principle of the world. Besides, when Heraclitus said, "that the earth was the thickest sediment of fire, that water was earth dissolved by fire, and that water in the state of vapour formed air," it is evident that he did not think of the system of the Vulcanists; he intended only to found a general system of corpuscular philosophy. Philosophy The same remark holds with respect to those who ascribof atoms. ed the creation of the earth and the universe to the concourse of particles or atoms scattered in the immensity of space. In the atoms of Democritus and Epicurus, which adhered to one another by means of some small inequalities of shapes, which served as a kind of crotchets or hooks, in the corpuscles which prefer and attract each other, in virtue of their similar nature, we recognize the fundamental principles of our theory of chemical affinities, and, consequently, of our most modern and most celebrated systems of geology. The union of atoms is evidently the same thing as the simple attraction of particles; and whether we say these corpuscles choose to unite, because they are of a similar nature, or these particles tend to unite by an elective attraction, all the difference consists only in the greater or less precision of the expressions. * Dio Laert. lib ix. S. Justin. Paranet. ad Græcos. Stob. Physic. Eclog. i. c. 13. + Plut. de Placit. Philosoph. i. Paresque cum paribus jungi res, &c. Lucret. nes. XIX. The idea of Franklin, who makes every thing to origi- BOOK nate from air, had been broached by Anaximenes of Miletus, whose opinions are without doubt misrepresented by System of the contracted minds of those who accuse him of atheism.* AnaximeThe Greeks did not rest satisfied with these general systems; they formed hypotheses of a more definite character, founded upon facts supplied by the physical geography of the countries then known. The flowing out of the lakes or marshy pools which covered Thessaly before the forma tion, or rather before the enlargement, of the valley of Tempe,† suggested the idea, that all the inland seas, and specially the Pontus-Euxinus, or Black Sea, had been originally inclosed lakes, to which some violent revolution had opened an outlet. Xanthus and Strato having observed that the soil of Upper Asia contained sea shells, justly concluded that these countries had been covered with sea water; but when Strato attempts to explain this phenomenon, which is common to all the globe, by supposing a local cause, by the existence of an ancient inland sea, formed by the union of the Pontus Euxinus with the Caspian, he falls into one of those paralogisms which appear to be almost hereditary in the pretended science of geology. We shall prove, in the proper place, that such an inland sea has not existed since the commencement of historical times. The general revolutions which may have been caused by the breaking up of the great lakes and interior seas, must have taken place long before the existence of the human race; and the deluges that have been occasioned by a derangement of the sea, belong to an age far beyond the reach of history. This is completely proved by the occurrence of animal remains.§ But the soil of Greece, from its very nature, must have frequently given way and sunk *Plut. de Placit. Stob. i. c. August. de Civ. Dei, viii. 2. Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. Herod. vii. 129, 130. Strab. ix. 667. Almel. Lucan, vi. 364, &c. See above, Book XII. near the end. ges. BOOK down, and consequently the country must bave frequently XIX. experienced local inundations. The deluge of Deucalion desolated Thessaly, especially the mountainous canton namDeluge of Deucalion ed Hellas; that of Ogges overwhelmed Boeotia. Poand Ogy-pular tradition naturally referred to those disasters which had ravaged whole provinces, every ancient inundation, the remembrance of which was preserved in any district. Thus a single opening, of inconsiderable extent, was shewn in Attica as the funnel by which all the waters of Deucalion's flood were drained away.‡ Twelve or fifteen centuries after the epoch assigned to these events, historians began to collect these scattered traditions, and to compose from them highly finished descriptions of pretended universal deluges, unknown to more ancient authors. Other Greek writers, dissatisfied with these sudden revolutions, these eruptions and deluges, invented the hypothesis of the gradual Hypothe drying up of the sea. Aristotle charged them with drawthe drying ing a false conclusion from authentic facts. "It is true," said that great naturalist, "that several countries, formerly covered with water, are now reunited to the main land, but the contrary also happens; the sea has made several eruptions." The hypothesis of alluvial additions to the land was also proposed. Polybius imagined that the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea, would be filled up by the mud which the rivers conveyed into it; but two thousand years have been insufficient to fulfil this geological prediction. The waters of the river Pyramus, in Cilicia, have made no addition to the opposite shores of Cyprus, as the oracle had foretold. Lastly, some of the Greek philosophers attributed to volcanic eruptions effects much more considerable than those for which we have any historical evidence. sis upon up of the sea. Apollod. i. c. 7. Arist. Meteorol. i. 14. Varro, de R. R. iii. comp. Fréret. Mémoire sur les Déluges d'Ogyges et de Deucalion. Académie des Inscriptions, t. xxiii. p. 129. Pausan. i. cap. 18. Diod. v. 49. Lucian, de Dea Syria. Plut. de Solert. anim. Arist. loc. cit. Polyb. Hist. 1. iv. cap. 40, 42. Edit. Gronov. i. p. 428, 433. XIX. Strabo imagined that they could raise and swallow up whole BOOK countries; and he mentions, as a proof, two towns in the Peloponnesus that were overwhelmed by an earthquake.* Thus do we discover, among the ancient Greeks, the germ of all the theories of modern geology, and the same disposition to confound facts belonging to different epochs, to exaggerate phenomena, and to deduce general conclusions. from local facts. Amongst the moderns, Palissy was the first to unfold Ideas of Palissy, correct ideas respecting fossil shells; he protested against 1581. the misconceptions of those who were for considering them only as the sportive productions of nature; he even ventur-` ed to maintain, that these fossil remains of marine animals were too abundant to have been carried into the places where they are found, by a sudden catastrophe resembling the deluge described by Moses.† Stenon demonstrated anew Ideas of these truths, which were of too bold a character for the 1669. age of Palissy. Proceeding still farther, he acknowledged that the strata of the earth must have been formed as deposits in a fluid, and that mountains owe their origin to the subsiding and rupture of strata originally horizontal.‡ Stenon, Burnet, Burnet, a man of great talents, but who had not care- System of fully observed phenomena, constructed the first complete 1681. theory. Before the deluge, says he, the surface of the earth was a level plain, with neither mountains nor valleys. All substances were disposed around the centre of the globe, according to their specific gravity, the water everywhere occupying the surface. The oily substances, however, being lighter than water, formed by degrees an upper layer, which enveloped the waters and the whole of the globe. Upon this extremely fertile crust, the antediluvian generations lived in perpetual spring. The deluge made Strab. i. 54. edit. de 1620. ↑ Encyclopédie Méthod. Géographie-Physique, i. art. Palissy. Stenon, Dissert. de Solido, intra solidum. Theoria telluris sacra, &c. London, 1681. |