Telliamed, or, The world explain'd : containing discourses between an Indian philospher and a missionary, on the diminution of the sea, the formation of the earth, the origin of men & animals : and other singular subjects, relating to natural history & philosphy ; a very curious work.

  • Maillet, Benoît de, 1656-1738. Telliamed. English
Date:
1797
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Telliamed, or, The world explain'd : containing discourses between an Indian philospher and a missionary, on the diminution of the sea, the formation of the earth, the origin of men & animals : and other singular subjects, relating to natural history & philosphy ; a very curious work. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    carried on without the afliftance of the fea, and out of her bofom; and that to raife the mafs of thefe mountains to their higheft fummits, and to rear thefe lofty edifices, it was neceffary that the waves lhould cover them totally. There are a great many fmall pieces of flint, or of large gravel in your free-ftone of Paris, efpe- cially in parts where the quarries terminate in beds of fand, on which we fee they have been formed of another more fine and proper for petrification. Thefe Hones are more beautiful or ugly to a certain thicknefs. Whence, Sir, does this proceed, if not from this, that when the ugly bed was formed, the flints or gravel have been carried to it by the waters of the fea ; and that after fome time, the giavel and flint failing, the water has brought a finer fand thither ? It is thus, as I obferved to you before, that nature operates in the formation pf flint-beds*. In a word, how without this could it happen, that in the white ftone employed in building the cathedral of Rouen, and in a hundred other places of Normandy, we fhould find large pieces of black /tone, and elfewhere pieces of white ft one in black or large flints of a very different quality from the . ftones which include them, pieces of marble in- clofed in common ftone, and common ft one inclof- ed in marble, marie, and a hundred other extra- neous bodies, even in the hardeft flints ? How can we account for this prodigy, if we do not admit, * In the cjuarrics of free-ftone near St. Leu Tavcrni, I have feen ftones fplit, in which were (hells and i'mal] fea flints of which the fea is generally full, and I have obferved, that the furface of thefe beds of free-ftone is covered with fand entirely, like that on the fea-ihore. Jejfitu Diftert. on herbs, fea-ihells, and other bodies found in cei tain ftones in St. Chaumont in. Lyons,