Volume 1

Buffon's Natural history, abridged. Including the history of the elements, the earth, mountains, rivers, seas, winds, whirlwinds, waterspouts, volcanoes, earthquakes, man, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, shell-fish, lizards, serpents, insects, and vegetables / [George Louis Leclerc Buffon].

  • Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de, 1707-1788.
Date:
1792
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Buffon's Natural history, abridged. Including the history of the elements, the earth, mountains, rivers, seas, winds, whirlwinds, waterspouts, volcanoes, earthquakes, man, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, shell-fish, lizards, serpents, insects, and vegetables / [George Louis Leclerc Buffon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    it is filled with large, beautiful ftala&ites, or fparry pillars like ificles, of various forms, as well on the roof of the vault as at the bottom. In that part of Greece, which is called Livadia, (the Achaia of the ancients) there is a large cavern in a moun- tain, which was formerly very famous for the oracles of Trophonius, between the lake Livadia and the adjacent fea, which, in the neareft part, is forty miles over ; there are forty fubterranean paffages acrofs the rock, under a lofty mountain, through which the waters of the lake conti- nually flow. In the month of June, a part of the mountain of Diableret in Valois, fell fuddenly, between two and three o’clock in the afternoon. The fky was very ferene ; the mountain was of a conical figure, and deftroyed fifty-thiee^ huts belonging to the boors, and crufhed to death fifteen people, and more than an hundred head of large, and much more of fmall cattle, covering a fquare league with ^ the ruins it occafioned. A profound darknefs was caufed by the duff; the heaps of ffones thrown together were above thirty perches; thefe heaps flopped the current of the water, which formed new and very deep lakes. In all this there was not the leaf! trace of bituminous matter, fulphur, lime, nor confequently any fubterranean fire ; and apparently the bafe of this great rock was worn away, or perifhed and re- duced to duff *. We have a remarkable example of thefe finkings near Folkflone, in the county of Kent. The hills in its en- virons have funk gradually, by an imperceptible motion, and without any earthquake. Thefe hills internally are rocks of flone and chalk. By this finking, they have thrown into the fea rocks and earths which were adjacent to it. When the waters on the furface of the earth cannot find vent to flow, they form Morasses and Bogs. The molt famous morafies in Europe, are thofe of Mufcovy at the fouree of the Tanais ; thofe of Finland, where the great morafies of Savolax and Enafak are; there are alfo fome in Holland, Weftphalia, and many other low countries; in Afia, the morafies of the Euphrates, thofe of Tartary, and the Palus Meotjdis ; neverthelefs, in general, there are fewer of them in Afia and Africa than in Europe ; but America may be faid to be but one continued morafs, throughout all its plains. This great number of morafies is * Hiftoire de l’Academie des Sciences, anno 1715, p. 4. D 4 a proof