Buffon's Natural History, Volume I (of 10)

"Its figure is that of a horse-shoe, and its circumference is about 400 paces; but exactly in its middle, it is divided by a very narrow island, about half a quarter of a league long. It is true these two parts join again; that which was on my side, and of which I could only have a side view, has several projecting points, but that which I beheld in front, appeared to be perfectly even." The Baron has also mentioned a torrent, which, if not the offspring of his own invention, must fall into some channel upon the melting of the snow.

There is another cataract three miles from Albany, in the province of New-York, whose height is 50 feet perpendicular, and from which there arises a mist that occasions a faint rainbow.39

In all countries where mankind are not sufficiently numerous to form polished societies, the ground is more irregular, and the beds of rivers more extended, less equal, and often abound with cataracts. Many ages were required to render the Rhone and the Loire navigable. It is by confining waters, by directing their course, and by cleansing the bottom of rivers, that they obtain a fixed and regular course; in all countries thinly inhabited Nature is rude, and often deformed.

There are rivers which lose themselves in the sands, and others which seem to precipitate into the bowels of the earth: the Guadalquiver in Spain, the river Gottenburg in Sweden, and the Rhine itself, lose themselves in the earth. It is asserted, that in the west part of the island of St. Domingo there is a mountain of a considerable height, at the foot of which are many caverns, into which the rivers and rivulets fall with so much noise, as to be heard at the distance of seven or eight leagues.40

The number of rivers which lose themselves in the earth is very few, and there is no appearance that they descend very low; it is more probable that they lose themselves, like the Rhine, by dividing among the quantity of sand; this is very common to small rivers that run through dry and sandy soils, of which we have several examples in Africa, Persia, Arabia, &c.

The rivers of the north transport into the sea prodigious quantities of ice, which accumulating, form those enormous masses so destructive to mariners. These masses are the most abundant in the Strait of Waigat, which is entirely frozen over the greatest part of the year, and are formed by the great flakes which the river Oby almost continually brings there; they attach themselves along the coasts, and heap up to a considerable height on both sides, but the middle of the strait is the last part which freezes, and where the ice is the lowest. When the wind ceases to blow from the North, and comes in the direction of the Strait, the ice begins to thaw and break in the middle; afterwards it loosens from the sides in great masses, which are carried into the high sea. The wind, which all winter blows from the north over the frozen countries of Nova Zembla, renders the country watered by the Oby, and all Siberia, so cold, that even at Tobolski, which is in the 57th degree, there are no fruit trees, while at Sweden, Stockholm, and even in higher latitudes, there are both fruit trees and pulse. This difference does not proceed, as it has been thought, from the sea of Lapland being warmer than the Straits; nor from the land of Nova Zembla being colder than Lapland; but solely from the Baltic, and the Gulph of Bothnia, tempering the rigour of the north winds, whereas in Siberia there is nothing that can temperate the cold. It is a fact founded on experience, that it is never so cold on the sea coasts as in the inland parts of a country. There are plants which stand the winter in London exposed to the open air, that cannot be preserved at Paris; and Siberia, which is a vast continent, is for this reason colder than Sweden, which is surrounded on all sides by the sea.

The coldest country in the world is Spitzbergen: it lies in the 78th degree of north latitude, and is entirely formed of small peaked mountains; these mountains are composed of gravel, and flat stones somewhat like slate, heaped one on the other; which, it is affirmed by navigators, are raised by the wind, and increase so quick, that new ones are discovered every year. The rein-deer is the only animal seen here, which feeds on a short grass and moss. On the top of these little mountains, and at more than a mile from the sea, the mast of a ship was found with a pully fastened to one of its ends, which gives room to suppose that the sea once covered the tops of these mountains, and that this country is but of modern date; it is uninhabited, and uninhabitable; the soil of these small mountains has no consistence, but is loose, and so cold and penetrating a vapour strikes from it, that it is impossible to remain any length of time thereon.

The vessels which go to Spitzbergen for the whale fishery, arrive there early in the month of July, and take their departure from it about the 15th of August, the ice preventing them from entering the sea earlier, or quiting it after. Prodigious pieces of ice, 60, 70, and 80 fathoms thick are seen there, and there are some parts of it where the sea appears frozen to the very bottom41: this ice, which is so high above the level of the sea, is as clear and transparent as glass.

There is also much ice in the seas of North America, as in Ascension Bay, in the Straits of Hudson, Cumberland, Davis, Forbishers, &c. Robert Lade asserts that the mountains of Friezeland are entirely covered with snow, and its coasts with ice, like a bulwark, which prevents any approaching them. "It is, says he, very remarkable, that in this sea we meet with islands of ice more than half a mile round, extremely high, and 70 or 80 fathoms deep; this ice, which is sweet, is perhaps formed in the rivers or straits of the neighbouring lands, &c. These islands or mountains of ice are so moveable, that in stormy weather they follow the track of a ship, as if they were drawn along in the same furrow by a rope. There are some of them tower so high above the water, as to surpass the tops of the masts of the largest vessels."42

In the collection of voyages made for the service of the Dutch East India Company, we meet with the following account of the ice at Nova Zembla: – "At Cape Troost the weather was so foggy as to oblige us to moor the vessel to a mountain of ice, which was 36 fathoms deep in the water, and about 16 fathoms out of it.

"On the 10th of August the ice dividing, it began to float, and then we observed that the large piece of ice, to which the ship had been moored, touched the bottom, as all the others passing by struck against without moving it. We then began to fear being inclosed between the ice, that we should either be frozen in or crushed to pieces, and therefore endeavoured to avoid the danger by attempting to get into another latitude, in doing of which the vessel was forced through the floating ice, which made a tremendous noise, and seemingly to a great distance; at length we moored to another mountain, for the purpose of remaining there that night.

"During the first watch the ice began to split with an inexpressible noise, and the ship keeping to the current, in which the ice was now floating, we were obliged to cut the cable to avoid it; we reckoned more than 400 large mountains of ice, which were 10 fathoms under and appeared more than 2 fathoms above water.

"We afterwards moored the vessel to another mountain of ice, which reached above 6 fathoms under water. As soon as we were fixed we perceived another piece beyond us, which terminated in a point, and went to the bottom of the sea; we advanced towards it, and found it 20 fathoms under water, and 12 above the surface.

"The 11th we reached another large shelve of ice, 18 fathoms under water, and 10 above it.

"The 21st the Dutch got pretty far in among the ice, and remained there the whole night; the next morning they moored their vessel to a large bank of ice, which they ascended, and considered as a very singular phenomenon, that its top was covered with earth, and they found near 40 eggs thereon. The colour was not the common colour of ice, but a fine sky blue. Those who were on it had various conjectures from this circumstance, some contending it was an effect of the ice, while others maintained it to be a mass of frozen earth. It was about eighteen fathoms under water, and ten above."43

Wafer relates, that near Terra del Fuega he met with many high floating pieces of ice, which he at first mistook for islands. Some appeared a mile or two in length, and the largest not less than 4 or 500 feet above the water.

All this ice, as I have observed in the sixth article, was brought thither by the rivers; the ice in the sea of Nova Zembla, and the Straits of Waigat come from the Oby, and perhaps from Jenisca, and other great rivers of Siberia and Tartary; that in Hudson's Straits, from Ascension Bay, into which many of the North American rivers fall; that of Terra del Fuega, from the southern continent. If there are less on the North coasts of Lapland, than on those of Siberia, and the Straits of Waigat, it is because all the rivers of Lapland fall into the Gulph of Bothnia, and none go into the northern sea. The ice may also be formed in the straits, where the tides swell much higher than in the open sea, and where, consequently, the ice that is at the surface may heap up and form those mountains, which are several fathoms high; but with respect to those which are 4 or 500 feet high, they appear to be formed on high coasts; and I imagine that when the snow which covers the tops of these coasts melts, the water flows on the flakes of ice, and being frozen thereon, thus increases the size of the first until it comes to that amazing height. That afterwards, in a warm summer, these hills of ice loosen from the coasts by the action of the wind and motion of the sea, or perhaps even by their own weight, and are driven as the wind directs, so that they at length may arrive into temperate climates before they are entirely melted.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME

1

Particularly Scotland and Ireland.

2

These facts are so easily demonstrated, that the smallest observation will prove their veracity.

3

Vide Newton, 2d edit. page 525.

4

Vid. Newton, page 405.

5

M. de Maupertuis' Figure of the Earth.

6

A New Theory of the Earth by William Whiston, 1708.

7

Thomas Burnet. Telluris theoria sacra, orbis nostri originem & mutationes generales, quas aut jam subut, aut olim Subiturus est complectens. Londina, 1681.

8

An Essay towards the Natural History of the Earth, &c. by John Woodward.

9

Voyage du Levant, vol. 2, page 336.

10

See the Hist. of the Acad. 1708, page 32.

11

See the Diss. de Solido intra Solidum, &c.

12

See Acta erudit, Lepiss, Ann. 1691, page 100.

13

Vide Herodotus, lib. iv.

14

See the Hist. of the Acad. Ann. 1725.

15

See the collection of Northern Voyages, page 200.

16

Vide Pliny, Hist. Nat. Vol. I. lib. 2.

17

See the ancient relations of travels by land to China, page 53 and 54.

18

Since this time, however, great discoveries, have been made; Mons. Vaillant has given a particular description of the country from the Cape to the borders of Caffraria; and much information has also been acquired by the Society for Asiatic Researches.

19

See the Hist. of New France, by the Pere Charlevoix. Vol. III. page 30 and 31.

20

Essay on the Natural History of the Earth, pages 40, 41, 42, &c.

21

See Varennii, Geograph. General, page 46.

22

See the Mem. of the Acad. 1716, page 14.

23

See the Voyages of Francis Piriard, vol. 1, page 108.

24

See Becher. Phys. subter.

25

Anno 1720; page 5.

26

A kind of soft gravelly stone.

27

On this subject see Stenon, Ray, Woodward, and others.

28

See Shaw's Voyages, Vol. ii, pages 40 and 41.

29

See Shaw's Travels.

30

Thevenot, Vol. I, page 25.

31

Voyage of Paul Lucus, Vol. II, page 380.

32

See Phil. Trans. Abr. Vol. VI. part ii. p. 153.

33

See Racolta d'autori che trattano del motto dell' acque, vol. 1, page 123.

34

See Keil's Examination of Burnet's Theory, page 126.

35

See Shaw's Travels, vol. ii, page 71.

36

See Boyle, vol. iii. page 217.

37

See Ovington's Travels, vol. ii. page 290.

38

See Phil. Trans. Abr. vol. vi. part ii. page 119.

39

Phil. Trans. vol. vi. part ii. page 19.

40

See Varenii Geograph. gen. page 48.

41

In contradiction to this idea it is now a generally received opinion, that the mountains of ice in the North and South Seas are exactly the same depth under as they are height above the surface of the water.

42

See the Voyages of Lade, vol. ii, page 305, &.

43

Voyage of the Dutch to the North, vol. 1, 3. Page 49.