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Analysing all his data he finally concluded that the Earth had
taken 2,905 years to consolidate from a molten mass, that following
33,911 years its surface would have been cool enough to touch, and
that it reached its present temperature after 74,047 years. His final
manipulations gave him a figure of 74,832 years as the age of the
Earth. This figure, like his earlier pronouncements in 1749, caused
the Sorbonne theologians to complain bitterly and Buffon again
published some form of mitigating remarks in later editions of
his book.
He then produced a chronological account of the evolution of the
Earthwhichwas documented by him in a series of seven E ´ poques. The
first was the formation of themolten Earth; in the second it had cooled
to being just hand-hot; the third was characterised by the world being
enveloped in a universal sea; the fourth saw great volcanic activity,
followed in the fifth by the emergence of land animals, who somehow
managed to survive the tectonic activity of his sixth ´poque when the
configurations of the land masses were defined; in the seventh and
final stage, humans appeared. It is interesting to note his organisation
of Earth history into seven ages, a number that was congruent with
those of the earlier biblical scholars.
After a long and productive life, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de
Buffon, died of the painful effects of vesical calculi on 16 April 1788
at home in Montbard at the age of eighty and was succeeded to the
estate by his son Georges-Louis-Marie (1764-1794), more widely
known as Buffonet. Buffonet was not a successful man despite wealth
and connections gained through marriage; he was a spendthrift and
not able to settle on any worthwhile study. Catherine the Great of
Russia remarked after meeting him that it was ironic that sons of
geniuses often turned out to be imbeciles. Buffonet's destiny was to
follow King Louis to the Parisian scaffold in 1794.
A few days after Georges-Louis Leclerc's death his body was
subjected to a post-mortem examination and his heart removed and
given to the geologist and traveller Barth ´ lemi Faujas de Saint-Fond
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