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LEIBNIZ: PROTOGAEA

Just as fire in the beginning seized everything, before the light was separated from the darkness, so it is supposed that after the extinction of this fire everything was submerged by the waters.


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The event is related in the sacred books of our religion; the ancient stories of nations agree, but especially the vestiges of the sea discovered inland aid faith. For even snails are found in the mountains, and to touch on our region, amber, which is often gathered in the sea, is sometimes found at a distance from the sea, and is also dug out of the ground in our country. There are those who go so far in their bold conjecturing as to think that all animals, which now dwell on the Earth, were covered by the sea, and have at some time been aquatic, and little by little, deserting their element, became amphibious and finally in succeeding generations forgot their first home.

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But that disagrees with the writers of the Holy Scriptures, to depart from whom is a religious offence. What we must consider now is from where came such a large mass of water [ Pr p28 ] which could overcome mountains, and where afterwards it withdrew to so that dry land would be returned to itself. Some men, by ingenious rather than well-ordered argument, describe the matter solely by a change of the centre of the Earth.

And there are those who, influenced by experiments on magnetic variation, imagine that there is another large body inside our Earth, like a kernel in a nut, having its own motion; but if the cause is to be therefore sought in that, must we not look to its poles for magnetic attraction rather than to the centre for the attraction of gravity?

But one could believe that this with its magnetic body has sometimes moved around, since its position is not yet fixed. It is easier to understand where the superfluous water went to, so that the Earth was relieved of it. For it has been able to flow through concealed entrances, broken through then for the first time, into vast caverns, and to penetrate into the interior of the globe.

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Although the seas have been able to cover the tops of former mountains, even if they may be imagined to be more than four Germanic miles above sea level, they would still not form a seventieth part of the rest of the globe. Thus nothing would contradict the view that what we now see has risen up out of the water, or rather if a higher part already existed beforehand, only then did men descend from the highest ridges, as the Scythians came down on the Egyptians, into new homes, and into the celebrated valley of Sinai of Moses; perhaps also when they were compelled by the cold, when the sea receded to the lower regions, [ Pr p30 ] they appeared as though lifted into a higher region of the air, which might now be moderated by unfavourable temperatures.

But if the water, when the earth was already solid, rose from a low-lying place into the highest mountains themselves by a natural cause at a time of flood, yet another explanation is required. Rains by themselves are not sufficient, unless the air was formerly more watery than at present. It is scarcely credible that the ocean was raised and lifted up everywhere across the globe like a vault by gas bursting all around from the earth; the swelling of the actual surface of the Earth is appropriate to the former time of fusion and to the time of volcanic activity, when the mass was soft and viscous; it had not yet fallen into a hard and brittle crust.

I would not dare to invoke external causes, such as the passage of a comet in the vicinity of the Earth or the moon being closer than it is now, which, by attracting the waters, would have raised them. Nor do I have confidence in a change of the direction or of the centre of gravity. But if we must face the problems, nothing appears more plausible than that we might believe that the vault of the Earth ruptured where it was held up by weaker supports, and a huge mass collapsed into the formerly enclosed sea below, leaving peaks exposed.

So the waters, forced out of caves, overflowed above the mountains, until, having found a new way into the underworld when the floodgates of the inner Earth were broken open, they left anew whatever now appears as dry land. And so if water once covered the crust of the Earth since its formation, one vault is sufficient. But if the water has overwhelmed mountains by a new inundation, there must have been two vaults, and the external cavity was filled with water, the internal cavity with air. So when the first was ruptured, water rose into the mountains, then when the lower one was fractured the water must have penetrated the lower abyss, and it will have conceded to terrestrial dwellers dry land for a second time.

In these explanations [ Pr p32 ] we can assuredly be aided by some meditations of an ingenious writer who recently gave us The Sacred Theory Of The Earth , 4 and who argues that mountains and valleys have formed from catastrophes, and by the writings of some erudite men, the study of which that writer encouraged. And Steno 5 had already considered certain things about catastrophes and sediments which were not inconsistent with this.

He surveyed a not inconsiderable part of Europe, and he everywhere observed the remains of broken arches, as I remember hearing him often recount, and congratulating himself that he contributed to faith in sacred history and the universal flood by natural proofs, not without the fruit of piety. But we seem to have gone further, having asserted that the vaults are the result of fusion, and that the seas were formed by the flowing of salts which absorbed the aqueous vapours.

With regard to silver or gold, or any other metal which exists in its own state, or at any rate occurs in a pure state, one is very inclined to suspect that they have been formed into a metallic body through the power of fire; and to such a point that in some places it seems as if it has taken the form of a cast of the surrounding hollows. Certainly a silver granule was not so long ago discovered in the alabaster of Nordhausen.

Thus nature created instead of man. Conversely, certain clever fraudsters imitate in the furnace the rarer forms of minerals, such as rough red silver, both vitriform and capillary, in order to deceive the curious. Thus they benefit from their deception, and teach the art of nature, the effects of which they have copied. Meanwhile it is to be admitted that certain bodies take their form from the motion of the waters alone, so that to invoke heat is not necessary; certain bodies require the operation of both.

Smoothed pebbles, roughly cut by nature, are seen everywhere on mountain slopes, and in the Alps themselves, which is good evidence that after the continuous motion of the waters has worn them down, they have stuck to petrifying soil, and afterwards through new catastrophes they have again become exposed. From which it is also understood that a river or torrent has formerly been there or in another higher place, displaced by the changed shape of the Earth.


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If anyone would still prefer to say that burned stone is scarcely of nature, that the mud covering the fish turned to stone either through time as a result of the nature of the material, or for some other cause, through some stone-making spirit or something else, and that metallic matter took on the measurements of the fish, or that in the beginning the mass was crude and soft, or even that afterwards it was carried out by a penetrable vapour although these ideas may be understood less easily , I do not object, nor do I dare to suggest anything certain, except what is sufficient for us, namely that fish expressed in slate are from true fish.

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Topics range from the formation of the earth, the actions of fire and water, the genesis of rocks and minerals, the origins of salts and springs, the formation of fossils, and their identification as the remains of living organisms. Overall, it was a pretty quick read, and an enjoyable one at that! Its quite interesting to compare and contrast views from a few hundred years ago, and to question whether or not Leibniz was trying to imply deeper political and or religious ideals with his observations.

Gottfried Leibniz is a major figure in intellectual history inventing calculus independently of Newton is only one of his many accomplishments , and Protogaea is a landmark book. He anticipated many of the fundamentals of modern geology and paleontology, and some of his observations illuminate what was going on at the time when quite a few thinkers were "inventing" the modern world. It is a real surprise that it took until recently to translate the book into English. Worlds Before Adam Martin J.

Principles of Geology, Volume 2 Charles Lyell. Gems and Gemstones Lance Grande. Protogaea Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.


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In the book, Leibniz offers observations about the formation of the earth, the actions of fire and water, the genesis of rocks and minerals, the origins of salts and springs, the formation of fossils, and their identification as the remains of living organisms. Though the works of Leibniz have been widely translated, Protogaea has languished in its original Latin for centuries. Now Claudine Cohen and Andre Wakefield offer the first English translation of this central text in natural philosophy and natural history. The first formation of the earth through fire III.

Different opinions concerning the creation of the globe IV. Sea salt, fires, and cycles of precipitation V.

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The many changes in our globe after its initial creation VI. What was the source of the water that covered the earth? And where did it go? Bructerus and the origin of springs VIII. Deposits of metal in the earth and a description of veins IX. The generation of minerals explained through chemistry X. Products common to laboratories and mines XI. The generation of precious stones, natural and artificial XII. Natural sublimations and the preparation of sal ammoniac XIII.

It is through fire that metals appear in their proper forms XIV.