Buffon's Natural History, Volume 02 (of 10) / Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Mineral, &c. &c

by comte de Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon

If we examine the position of the Antilles, beginning at Trinidad, which is the most south, we cannot doubt but that Tobago, Trinidad, the Grenades, St. Vincent, Martinico, Mary Galante, Antigua, and Barbadoes, with every other island adjacent, at one time formed a chain of mountains, whose direction was from south to north, like that of the island of Newfoundland, and the country of the Esquimaux; afterwards the direction of the Antilles is from east to west, beginning at Barbadoes, then passing by St. Bartholomew, Porto Rico, St. Domingo, and Cuba, and nearly the same as Cape Breton, Acadia, and New England. All these islands are so adjacent to each other, that they may be looked upon as an interrupted tract of land, and as the summit of an overflown country now possessed by the sea. Most of them in fact are only points of mountains, and the sea which surrounds them is a real mediterranean where the motion of the flux and reflux is scarcely more sensible than in our Mediterranean, although the openings they present to the ocean are directly opposite to the motion of the waters from east to west, which must contribute to elevate the tides in the gulph of Mexico; but as this sea is very broad, the flux and reflux communicated to it by the ocean, dispersing over so large a space, becomes almost insensible at the coast of Louisiana, and many other places.

The old and new continent appear, therefore, both to have been encroached upon by the ocean in the same latitudes. Both have a vast mediterranean and a great number of islands, which are situated nearly in the same latitudes; the only difference is, that the old continent being much broader than the new, there is in the western part of it a mediterranean, of which nothing similar can be found in the new; but it appears that all which has happened to the eastern countries of the old world has also happened to the eastern part of the new, and that the greatest revolutions are nearly in the middle and towards their equators, where the most violent motion of the ocean is made.

The coasts of Guiana, comprehended between the mouth of the river Oroonoko and the Amazones, presents nothing remarkable, but the latter, which is the broadest in the universe, forms a considerable extent of water near Coropa, before it arrives at the sea, by the two different mouths which surround the island of Caviana. From the mouth of the Amazones to Cape St. Roche, the coast runs almost straight east; from Cape St. Roche to St. Augustine it runs south, and from Cape St. Augustine to the Bay of All Saints it turns towards the west, so that this part of Brazil forms a considerable projection in the sea, which directly faces a like projection of land in Africa. The Bay of All Saints is a small arm of the ocean, running about 50 leagues into the land, and is much frequented by navigators. From this bay to Cape St. Thomas the coast runs direct south, and afterwards in a south-west direction as far as the mouth of the Plata, where the sea forms an arm projecting nearly 100 leagues into land. From thence to the extremity of America, the ocean forms a great gulph, terminated by the adjacent lands of Terra del Fuega, as Falkland Island, Cape Assumption, and the land discovered in 1671. At the bottom of this bay is the Straits of Magellan, which is the longest in the world, and where the tides flow extremely high. Beyond Magellan is that of La Maire, which is shorter, and at last Cape Horn, which is the south point of America.

We must remark on the subject of these points that they all face the south, and most of them cut by straits which run from east to west; the first is that of South America, which faces the southern pole, and is cut by the Strait of Magellan; the second, that of Greenland, which also directly faces the south, and is also cut from east to west by Forbisher's Strait; the third that of Africa, which also faces the south; and beyond the Cape of Good Hope are banks and shoals, that appear to have been divided from it; the fourth, the peninsula of India, which is cut by a strait that forms the island of Ceylon, and facing the south like all the rest. Hitherto we perceive no reason to be given for this similarity, and can only remark such are the facts.

From Terra del Fuega, all along the western coast of South America, the ocean very considerably penetrates into the land; and this coast seems exactly to follow the direction of the lofty mountains which cross all South America, from south to north, from the equator to the Arctic Pole. Near the equator the ocean forms a considerable gulph, beginning at Cape St. Francois, and reaching as far as Panama, the famous isthmus, which, like that of Suez, prevents the communication of the two seas, and without which there would be an entire separation of the old and new continents. From thence to California there is nothing remarkable. Between the latter and New Mexico an arm branches off, called Vermilion Sea, at least 200 leagues in length. In short, the western coasts of California have been followed to the 43d degree, at which latitude Drake, who was the first that made the discovery of the land to the north of California, and who called it New Albion, was obliged, through excessive cold, to change his course, and to anchor in a small bay which bears his name, so that these countries have not been discovered beyond the 43d and 44th degree, any more than the lands pf North America beyond Moozemlaki under the 48th degree, and the Assiniboils under the 51st. The country of the first savages extends much more to the west than the east. All beyond, throughout an extent of more than 1000 leagues in length, and as many in breadth, is unknown, excepting what the Russians pretend to have discovered in their excursions from Kamtschatka to the eastern part of North America.

The ocean, therefore, surrounds the whole earth without any interruption, and the tour of the globe may be made from the south point of America; but it is not yet known whether the ocean surrounds the northern part of the globe in the like manner; and all mariners who have attempted to go from Europe to China by the north-east of north-west have alike miscarried in their enterprises.

The lakes differ from the mediterraneans; the first do not receive any water from the ocean; on the contrary, if they have communication with the seas, they furnish them with water. Thus the Black Sea, which some geographers have regarded as an arm of the Mediterranean, and consequently as an appendix of the ocean, is only a lake, because, in place of receiving water from the Mediterranean, it supplies it with some, and flows with rapidity through the Bosphorus into the lake called the Sea of Marmora, and from thence through the Strait of the Dardanelles into the Grecian Sea. The Black Sea is about 250 leagues long by 100 broad, and it receives a great number of rivers, as the Danube, the Nieper, the Don, the Boh, the Donjec, &c. The Don, which unites with the Donjec, forms, before it arrives at the Black Sea, a lake, called the Palus Meotis, which is more than 100 leagues in length by 20 or 25 broad. The sea of Marmora, which is below the Black Sea, is a smaller lake than the Palus Meotis, being not more than 50 leagues long and 8 or 9 broad.

Some ancients, and among the rest Diodorus Siculus, have asserted that the Euxine, or Black Sea, was formerly only a large river or lake, and had no communication with the Grecian sea; but being considerably increased with time by the rivers which fell into it, the waters forced a passage at first on the side of the Cyanean islands, and afterwards on the side of the Hellespont. This opinion appears to be very probable, and the operation is easily explained; for supposing the bottom of the Black Sea was formerly lower than it is at present, then the rivers which come into it would have raised it by the mud and sand which they brought with them, until the surface of the water became higher than the land, when consequently it would have forced a passage for itself, and as the rivers still continue to bring sand and earth, and at the same time the quantity of water diminishes in the rivers, in proportion as the mountains from which they drew their sources are lowered, it may happen in a course of years that the Bosphorus will be again filled up; but as these effects depend on many causes, it is scarcely possible to give more than mere conjectures thereon. From this testimony of the ancients, Mr. Tournefort, in his voyage to the Levant, says, on ancient authority, that the Black Sea receiving the waters of a great part of Europe and Asia, after being considerably increased, opened itself a passage by the Bosphorus, and afterwards formed the Mediterranean, or so considerably augmented it, that it became a great sea, and forced itself a road through the strait of Gibraltar, by which the island of Atlantis, mentioned by Plato, was entirely overflowed. This opinion has no foundation, since we are certain that it is the ocean which flows into the Mediterranean, and not the Mediterranean into the ocean. Besides, M. Tournefort has not combined two essential facts, both of which he mentions: the first is, that the Black Sea receives nine or ten rivers, not one of which but supplies it with more than the Bosphorus throws out: and the second, that the Mediterranean does not receive more water from rivers than the Black Sea, although it is seven or eight times larger, and that what the Bosphorus supplies it with does not make the tenth part of what falls into the Black Sea; how then could this tenth part of what falls into a small sea have formed not only a larger sea, but have also so greatly increased the waters, as to have broken down the lands at the strait of Gibraltar, and overflow an island larger than the whole of Europe? It is easy to perceive that this passage of M. Tournefort has not had due reflection. The Mediterranean receives at least ten times more water from the ocean than from the Black Sea, because the Bosphorus is only 800 feet broad in its narrowest part, whereas the strait of Gibraltar is more than 5000, and that, even supposing their velocity to be equal, still the depth of the straits of Gibraltar is by far the greatest.

M. de Tournefort, who ridicules Polybius on his predicting that the Bosphorus would be filled up in time, did not pay sufficient attention to circumstances, when he asserted that event to be impossible. This sea receives eight or ten great rivers, and as most of them bring sand and mud, must it not gradually be choaked up? Must not the winds and the natural current of the waters towards the Bosphorus, convey thither a part of these matters? It is, therefore, very probable that in a course of time the Bosphorus will be filled, when the waters of the rivers which come into the Black Sea shall be gradually diminished; now all rivers daily diminish, because the vapours collected by the mountains being the first sources of rivers, their quantity must decrease as the mountains diminish in height.