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During a long time, two events or epochs only, the Creation and the Deluge, were admitted as comprehending the changes which have been operated upon the globe; and all the efforts of geologists were directed to account for the present existing state of things, by imagining a certain original state, afterwards modified by the deluge, of which also, as to its causes, its operations, and its effects, each entertained his own theory.

Thus, according to one[15], the earth was at first invested with an uniform light crust, which covered the abyss of the sea; and which being broken up for the production of the deluge, formed the mountains by its fragments. According to another[16], the deluge was occasioned by a momentary suspension of cohesion among the particles of mineral bodies; the whole mass of the globe was dissolved, and the paste thus formed became penetrated with shells. According to a third[17], God raised up the mountains for the purpose of allowing the waters, which had produced the deluge, to run off; and selected those places in which there was the greatest quantity of rocks, without which the mountains could not have supported themselves. A fourth[18] created the earth from the atmosphere of one comet, and deluged it by the tail of another: The heat which it retained from its origin, was what, in his opinion, excited the whole of the living beings upon it to sin; for which they were all drowned, excepting the fishes, whose passions were apparently less vehement.