Читать книгу Essay on the Theory of the Earth онлайн

35 страница из 122

The system of Buffon is merely an extension of that of Leibnitz, with the addition only of a comet, which, by a violent blow, struck off from the sun the liquefied mass of the earth, together with those of all the other planets at the same instant. From this supposition, he was enabled to assume positive dates, as, from the present temperature of the earth, it could be calculated how long it had taken to cool down so far; and, as all the other planets had come from the sun at the same time, it could also be calculated how many ages are still required for cooling the greater ones, and to what degree the smaller are already frozen[21].

ssss1

In our own times, men of still bolder imaginations have exercised their minds upon this great subject. Some writers have revived and greatly extended the ideas of Demaillet. They suppose that every thing was originally fluid; that this fluid gave existence to animals, which were at first of the most simple kind, such as the monads and other infusory and microscopic species; that, in process of time, and by assuming different habits, the races of animals became complicated, and assumed that diversity of nature and character in which they now appear. By means of those various races of animals, part of the waters of the sea have gradually been converted into calcareous earth; while the vegetables, concerning the origin and metamorphoses of which these writers are totally silent, have, on their part, converted a portion of the same water into clay: These two earths, on being stripped of the characters which life had impressed upon them, are resolved, by a final analysis, into silex; and hence the reason that the oldest mountains are more siliceous than the rest. All the solid parts of the earth, therefore, owe their existence to life, and, without life, the globe would still be entirely liquid[22].