 Beyond the confines of the Paris Jardin, the reflections inspired by Buffon in wider discussions of the late Enlightenment were complex. The reception of Buffon’s Des Époques de la Nature, for example, was uneven (Roger “Introduction” in Buffon 1779, [1988, cxxiv]). The work was never translated into English until recently (2018), and it seems to have played an insignificant role in anglophone discussions, in contrast, for example, to the major impact of the works of Linnaeus, which received a wide British exposition and translation. The boldly speculative character of the Epochs was also at odds with the new professionalized inquiries into geology and natural history undertaken by a younger generation of naturalists who may have adopted Buffon’s naturalism and extension of geochronology, but not his grand rhetorical style (Rudwick 2005: chp. 3).