Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)
Geologists in the 18th century argued that there were many more catastrophes in ancient times than today because the earth was much more violent. The sun and earth are cooling now, having been much hotter in the past.
In the eighteenth century, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, in Natural History of the Globe, of Man, of Beasts, Birds, Fishes, Reptiles, Insects and Plants (1831), challenged Archbishop Ussher’s date of the earth’s origin. Ussher calculated the Earth to be 74,832 years old and that fossils are extinct species that existed at different times during the cooling periods of the Earth; each period closed with a catastrophe.
In antiquated knowledge, the universe was regarded as unstable and temporary, with cycles of destruction and repair, with long periods of unbroken tranquility, broken by catastrophes. Once the catastrophe ended, the land was again populated, and species returned to populate the earth.
In this framework, Atlantis’s and Lemuria’s destruction would be a natural consequence of the violent and catastrophic nature of Earth’s formative periods, fitting neatly into a worldview that accepted sudden, transformative events as part of the planet’s history.
Leclerc’s argument contrasts with Charles Lyell’s later gradualism but supports the dramatic loss of a civilization described in ancient myths.
Author: mountshastamyths
Lurking around here with more questions than answers