The interest of the Danish scientist Niels Stensen (1638–1686) in geology begins with his manuscript Chaos of 1659. It shows how he is influenced by Pierre Borel (ca. 1620–1689), René Descartes (1596–1650), Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680), Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655), and others. His main contribution to geology is his pioneering work from 1669 De Solido intra Solidum Naturaliter Contento Dissertationis Prodromus. The Deluge described by Holy Scripture plays an important role in Stensen’s theory and his reconstruction of Earth history. Stensen had become a Catholic in 1667. However, his acceptance of what scripture says about the Deluge is sincere. He had no means of checking time scales nor would deviation from Holy Scripture be dangerous for him, since a Jesuit, Martino Martini (1614–1661), in 1658 had published a history of China that did not fit well with the time scale in Holy Scripture. The present paper mentions other scientists’ sincere adherence to diluvial theories, like Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), whereas Carl von Linné (Linnaeus, 1707–1778) was more reserved. After 1840, diluvianism was finally dropped because of Agassiz’ (1807–1873) discovery of glaciations.

Abstract The Theories of the Earth formulated by the English scholars Thomas Burnet, William Whiston and John Woodward at the end of the seventeenth century circulated widely within the continent of Europe during the first decades of the eighteenth century. These theories established a sequence of physical conditions of the Earth according to the chronology outlined in the Book of Genesis, emphasizing two main stages: the Creation and the Deluge. Although the authority of the Biblical account of the age and early history of the Earth was normally accepted at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the continental reception of English Theories of the Earth varied. This was due to the complexity of the European context which since the 1660s had produced the theories of René Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Athanasius Kircher, as well as Nicolaus Steno’s dynamic view on the development of the Earth’s surface. Steno emphasized the importance of the interpretation of rock strata in the field for reconstruction of the Earth’s history. He also carefully avoided contradicting the Biblical account and associated the Deluge with one of the geological stages identified in his history. Nevertheless, the Stenonian heritage stimulated some Italian scientists – such as Antonio Vallisneri, Luigi Ferdinando Marsili, and later Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti and Giovanni Arduino – to presuppose, within the results of their researches, an indefinitely great antiquity of the Earth. Theoretical models linked to Biblical chronology included those of Emanuel Swedenborg in Sweden and Johann Jakob Scheuchzer in Switzerland, while in France, Benok De Maillet proposed a Theory of the Earth which was censured by the Church because of its possible implications regarding the eternity of matter. Among European scholars of the first decades of the eighteenth century, the Stenonian heritage (notably the necessity of fieldwork in a regional context) and the global Theories of the Earth were equally influential.