The chronologers' quest : episodes in the search for the age of the earth

This book struck me as interesting because of its historical value in following the trajectory of various perspectives on the age of the earth. While there is some description of these items in the text, it is overwhelmed by anecdotal stories and tedious biographical information about geologists. The main content of the title's self-proclaimed quest could be reduced to a tenth of the size of the book with pertinent info instead of the extra needless drivel. There are better books out there on this subject. Cover 1 Half-title 3 Title 5 Copyright 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 Illustrations 10 Tables 12 Preface 13 Acknowledgements 18 1 The ancients: early chronologies 21 Egyptian beliefs 22 Chaldean and Babylonian beliefs 23 Indian or Vedic creation beliefs 25 Hindu duration of the Universe 26 Buddhist beliefs 26 Chinese and Japanese beliefs 27 Greek beliefs 28 Scandinavian beliefs 29 Early creation beliefs from the Americas 30 Creation beliefs from the Pacific 30 2 Biblical calculations 33 Elizabethan and seventeenth-century biblical chronologies 34 A commonwealth of chronologies 35 The archbishop from Dublin 39 What did Ussher actually write? 42 John Lightfoot 47 Numerous chronological estimates 48 The King James Bible, and the rise and fall of Ussher's reputation 49 Insertion of a marginal note 50 3 Models of Aristotelian infinity and sacred theories of the Earth 52 Cartesian and Kircherian models of the Earth 54 Sacred theories of the Earth 58 Burnet's Telluris 58 John Woodward's dissolving Earth 62 The confrontational Whiston 65 4 Falling stones, salty oceans, and evaporating waters: early empirical measurements of the age of the Earth 67 Edward Lhwyd 67 RobertPlot's assistant 69 A fossil catalogue and the falling stones of Llanberis 72 Fresh and saltwater 78 5 Thinking in layers: early ideas in stratigraphy 86 Steno and the Tuscan landscape: turning the key to the concept of stratification 86 'The English Steno' 91 Local thoughts on local strata 94 Early European developments towards a global stratigraphic framework 97 6 An infinite and cyclical Earth and religious orthodoxy 106 The genesis of a new theory of the Earth 106 Hutton's theory of 1785 109 Backlash 113 Ideas on the origin of the Giant's Causeway 116 Hutton returns to his theory 119 Hutton commemorated 123 7 The cooling Earth 125 The average student from Dijon 126 Scientific development 128 Histoire Naturelle 129 Buffon's determination of the age of the Earth 131 8 Stratigraphical laws, uniformitarianism and the development of the geological column 139 Emergence of professionalism in geology 139 Stratigraphical geology and modern protocol 142 Laying down stratigraphical laws 146 William Smith 146 Charles Lyell 148 The concept of geological time 151 Genesis of the geological column 153 Whither the geological Periods? 155 The icing on the layer-cake 166 Further stratigraphical spats and personal enmities 168 The colour representation of geology on maps 170 9 'Formed stones' and their subsequent role in biostratigraphy and evolutionary theory 174 Early notions on fossils 177 Beginning of scientific investigation 179 The beginnings of biostratigraphy 179 Acquisition of further biostratigraphical data 183 Marker fossils, or biozones 185 Correlation charts 187 Evolutionary questions and the paucity of time 188 10 The hour-glass of accumulated or denuded sediments 191 Sedimentation rates and geochronology 192 Deltas 193 Uplift and denudation: mechanisms of sediment production 194 The sedimentary hour-glass 196 Was Darwin a geologist? 205 Problems with Phillips' idea 207 Later estimates of time derived from the sedimentary pile 209 The hour-glass shatters 215 11 Thermodynamics and the cooling Earth revisited 217 Thomson on the age of the Earth: a three-pronged attack 220 The age of the Sun 220 Cooling of the Earth 221 Tidal friction 223 Reaction to solar heat, a cooling globe and a spinning sphere 223 Accolades and laurels 226 Consigning Thomson's temporal trident to history 227 12 Oceanic salination reconsidered 230 John Joly 232 Joly on the age of the Earth 237 13 Radioactivity: invisible geochronometers 247 Invisible rays 247 A self-generating heat source: heating up the cooling Earth 249 The farmer's son from New Zealand 251 Radioactivity and the disintegration sequences 252 Decay series and geochronology 256 Pleochroic halos: the chronological rings 259 Putting ages on the geological column 261 Holmes' peregrinations 261 The development of Holmes' geological timescale 264 14 The Universal problem and Duck Soup 270 Is the Earth too old? 270 The preparation of Duck Soup 272 Taking the lead out and the magic number 274 The shoulders of giants 279 Bibliography 281 General works consulted 281 Chapter 1. The ancients: early chronologies 282 Chapter 2. Biblical calculations 283 Chapter 3. Models of Aristotelian infinity and sacred theories of the Earth 285 Chapter 4. Falling stones, salty oceans, and evaporating waters: early empirical measurements of the age of the Earth 286 Chapter 5. Thinking in layers: early ideas in stratigraphy 287 Chapter 6. An infinite and cyclical Earth and religious orthodoxy 289 Chapter 7. The cooling Earth 291 Chapter 8. Stratigraphical laws, uniformitarianism and the development of the geological column 292 Chapter 9. 'Formed stones' and their subsequent role in biostratigraphy and evolutionary theory 294 Chapter 10. The hour-glass of accumulated or denuded sediments 295 Chapter 11. Thermodynamics and the cooling Earth revisited 297 Chapter 12. Oceanic salination reconsidered 299 Chapter 13. Radioactivity: invisible geochronometers 300 Chapter 14. The Universal problem and Duck Soup 303 Index 305 The debate over the age of the Earth has been ongoing for over two thousand years, and has pitted physicists and astronomers against biologists, and religious philosophers against geologists. The Chronologers' Quest tells the fascinating story of our attempts to determine the age of the Earth. This book investigates the many novel methods used in the search for the Earth's age, from James Ussher and John Lightfoot examining biblical chronologies, and from Comte de Buffon and Lord Kelvin determining the length of time for the cooling of the Earth, to the more recent investigations of Arthur Holmes and Clair Patterson into radioactive dating of rocks and meteorites. The Chronologers' Quest is a readable account of the measurement of geological time. It will be of great interest to a wide range of readers, from those with little scientific background to students and scientists in a wide range of the Earth sciences.

The debate over the age of the Earth has been ongoing for over two thousand years, and has pitted physicists and astronomers against biologists, religious philosophers against geologists. The Chronologers' Quest tells the fascinating story of our attempts to determine the age of the Earth. This book investigates the many novel methods used in the search for the Earth's age, from James Ussher and John Lightfoot examining biblical chronologies, Comte de Buffon and Lord Kelvin determining the length of time for the cooling of the Earth, to the more recent investigations of Arthur Holmes and Clair Patterson into radioactive dating of rocks and meteorites. The Chronologers' Quest is a readable account of the measurement of geological time. It will be of great interest to a wide range of readers, from those with little scientific background, to students and scientists in a wide range of the earth sciences.