 These insights were developed in Buffon’s major work, the Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du cabinet du roi (Buffon [HN]). In these discussions Buffon dealt both with issues in the foundational epistemology and methodology of the natural-historical sciences as well as with the generalities and specifics of organic beings. The work was originally intended as a survey of the entire range of animals, plants, and minerals. In its actual realization, it was more limited. The first series of fourteen volumes appeared between 1749 and 1767 and dealt with the genesis of the solar system and the earth, the generation of animals, the varieties of the human species, and the natural history of the primary quadrupeds and apes. The main quadruped volumes of the first series, beginning in 1753, were written in collaboration with the comparative anatomist Marie-Louis Daubenton (1716–1800). A series of seven volumes of Supplements (1774–89) offered additional reflections and additions to these articles and expanded on his views on the history of the earth, the quadrupeds, and anthropology. These also reported on experiments on the strength of wood and the cooling of metals that he applied to dating the age of the earth. In the fifth supplementary volume (1778), Buffon presented his grand synthesis of cosmology, earth history, and the history of life, the Les (subsequently Des) Époques de la nature. An additional five volumes (1783–88) dealt with issues of mineralogy, chemistry, fire, and the main forces of nature, especially electricity and magnetism. 