"The object of "The World before the Deluge" is to trace the progressive steps by which the earth has reached its present state, from that condition of chaos when it "was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the the deep," and to describe the various convulsions and transformations through which it has successively passed."

'The World Before the Deluge' by Louis Figuier (1872 revision of the 1862 text) is online at 19th century science.