Natural Catastrophe in Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle
27
des végétaux dont les débris ey sediments forment des charbons et des
pyrites qui s’enflamment en s’unissant aux substances minerales
sublimées par la grande chaleur de la terre, et produisent les éruptions
volcaniques”.
26 We will return to this last point later. During the fifth
epoch, the progressive cooling of the Earth’s surface steadily drives
elephants and other so-called “animaux du midi”
27 towards lands
strung along the equator which had hitherto been uninhabitable because they were too hot. These animals, born at the poles when the polar regions had the “même degré de chaleur dont jouissent aujourd’hui
les terres méridionales”,
28 follow the southerly movement of the temperature band in which they were born. As a result, by 1778 Buffon’s
theory of the Earth is wholly predicated on the analogy of a ball of
metal heated up until it is white-hot then allowed to cool down. One of
the most important consequences of the use of this new metanarrative
is that natural catastrophes now fit into the temporal scheme of things.
After all, do not the Époques expound an exact “history” of the Earth,
the fourth epoch of which witnesses the first episodes of subsidence,
the first earthquakes and volcanic eruptions – catastrophes that are
caused by wholly natural and explicable mechanisms?
It is clear that between 1749 and 1778 the systemic status of
catastrophe shifts: from being an exogenetic accident it becomes an
endogenetic event, the product of a specific, identifiable dynamic, the
seemingly necessary consequence of Buffon’s privileged geo-physical
hypothesis, that of an irreversible global cooling. In turn, this allows
Buffon to re-evaluate the importance of natural catastrophes in the
shaping of the Earth’s surface. More than two decades after the publication of Lehmann’s work, he comes to accept the existence of several
“orders” of mountains: a primary order comprising anomalies, geological “blisters” forged by fire and transformed in cataclysmic
events; and the remainder, formed by the action of water.
Towards an Aesthetics of Catastrophe
While the scientific – and epistemological – status of natural catastrophes changes over the long course of the Histoire naturelle’s publica___________________________
26 Gabriel Gohau, Les sciences de la terre aux XVII
e et XVIII
e siècles. Naissance de la
géologie (Paris: Albin Michel, 1990), pp. 201-2.
27 Buffon, “Époques de la nature”, V, pp. 165, 170, 173, 188, 189.
28 Buffon, “Époques de la nature”, V, p. 165.
27
des végétaux dont les débris ey sediments forment des charbons et des
pyrites qui s’enflamment en s’unissant aux substances minerales
sublimées par la grande chaleur de la terre, et produisent les éruptions
volcaniques”.
26 We will return to this last point later. During the fifth
epoch, the progressive cooling of the Earth’s surface steadily drives
elephants and other so-called “animaux du midi”
27 towards lands
strung along the equator which had hitherto been uninhabitable because they were too hot. These animals, born at the poles when the polar regions had the “même degré de chaleur dont jouissent aujourd’hui
les terres méridionales”,
28 follow the southerly movement of the temperature band in which they were born. As a result, by 1778 Buffon’s
theory of the Earth is wholly predicated on the analogy of a ball of
metal heated up until it is white-hot then allowed to cool down. One of
the most important consequences of the use of this new metanarrative
is that natural catastrophes now fit into the temporal scheme of things.
After all, do not the Époques expound an exact “history” of the Earth,
the fourth epoch of which witnesses the first episodes of subsidence,
the first earthquakes and volcanic eruptions – catastrophes that are
caused by wholly natural and explicable mechanisms?
It is clear that between 1749 and 1778 the systemic status of
catastrophe shifts: from being an exogenetic accident it becomes an
endogenetic event, the product of a specific, identifiable dynamic, the
seemingly necessary consequence of Buffon’s privileged geo-physical
hypothesis, that of an irreversible global cooling. In turn, this allows
Buffon to re-evaluate the importance of natural catastrophes in the
shaping of the Earth’s surface. More than two decades after the publication of Lehmann’s work, he comes to accept the existence of several
“orders” of mountains: a primary order comprising anomalies, geological “blisters” forged by fire and transformed in cataclysmic
events; and the remainder, formed by the action of water.
Towards an Aesthetics of Catastrophe
While the scientific – and epistemological – status of natural catastrophes changes over the long course of the Histoire naturelle’s publica___________________________
26 Gabriel Gohau, Les sciences de la terre aux XVII
e et XVIII
e siècles. Naissance de la
géologie (Paris: Albin Michel, 1990), pp. 201-2.
27 Buffon, “Époques de la nature”, V, pp. 165, 170, 173, 188, 189.
28 Buffon, “Époques de la nature”, V, p. 165.