“a globe of red hot iron”: Newton 1687; see the English translation by Motte 1848, p. 486.

Buffon assumed that the Earth started: The twentieth volume in Buffon’s Natural History: General and Particular was entitled Epochs of Nature. In it, he divided the history of the Earth into seven epochs, and he attempted to estimate the length in time of each. A good description can be found in Haber 1959, p. 118.

“no vestige of a beginning”: Hutton 1788.

“how fatal the suspicion”: Richard Kirwan was president of the Royal Irish Academy. He wrote a series of articles and a book in support of the biblical description and against Hutton. The quote here is from Kirwan 1797.

with the publication of Charles Lyell’s: Lyell 1830–33.