Worlds Before Adam : The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, scientists reconstructed the immensely long history of the earth—and the relatively recent arrival of human life. The geologists of the period, many of whom were devout believers, agreed about this vast timescale. But despite this apparent harmony between geology and Genesis, these scientists still debated a great many questions: Had the earth cooled from its origin as a fiery ball in space, or had it always been the same kind of place as it is now? Was prehuman life marked by mass extinctions, or had fauna and flora changed slowly over time? The first detailed account of the reconstruction of prehuman geohistory, Martin J. S. Rudwick’s __Worlds Before Adam__ picks up where his celebrated __Bursting the Limits of Time__ leaves off. Here, Rudwick takes readers from the post-Napoleonic Restoration in Europe to the early years of Britain’s Victorian age, chronicling the staggering discoveries geologists made during the period: the unearthing of the first dinosaur fossils, the glacial theory of the last ice age, and the meaning of igneous rocks, among others. Ultimately, Rudwick reveals geology to be the first of the sciences to investigate the historical dimension of nature, a model that Charles Darwin used in developing his evolutionary theory. Featuring an international cast of colorful characters, with Georges Cuvier and Charles Lyell playing major roles and Darwin appearing as a young geologist, __Worlds Before Adam__ is a worthy successor to Rudwick’s magisterial first volume. Completing the highly readable narrative of one of the most momentous changes in human understanding of our place in the natural world, __Worlds Before Adam__ is a capstone to the career of one of the world’s leading historians of science. Contents......Page 8 List of illustrations......Page 14 Acknowledgments......Page 20 A note on footnotes, references, and quotations......Page 22 Introduction......Page 26 Part One......Page 34 1.1 Cuvier’s Fossil Bones......Page 36 1.2 The Fossil Bones revised......Page 41 1.3 Cuvier’s secular resurrection......Page 45 1.4 Conclusion......Page 47 2.1 The strange ichthyosaur......Page 50 2.2 The Geological Society......Page 53 2.3 Conybeare’s plesiosaur......Page 55 2.4 Conclusion......Page 59 3.1 The practice of geognosy......Page 60 3.2 “Conybeare and Phillips”......Page 64 3.3 The stratigraphy of Europe......Page 66 3.4 Conclusion......Page 70 4.1 “Paleontology” defined......Page 72 4.2 Life’s own history......Page 73 4.3 The life of ancient seas......Page 75 4.4 Ancient plant life......Page 80 4.5 Conclusion......Page 82 5.1 Buckland’s megalosaur......Page 84 5.2 Mantell’s giant herbivore......Page 86 5.3 Wealden stratigraphy......Page 89 5.4 Mantell’s iguanodon......Page 90 5.5 The Stonesfield marsupials......Page 94 5.6 Conclusion......Page 97 6.1 Buckland’s “hyaena story” at Kirkdale......Page 98 6.2 Buckland’s new “diluvial” evidence......Page 100 6.3 “Relics of the deluge”......Page 105 6.4 Critics of the deluge......Page 107 6.5 Conclusion......Page 111 7.1 The adequacy of actual causes......Page 114 7.2 Von Hoff and Nature’s “statistics”......Page 116 7.3 Etna: Europe’s greatest volcano......Page 122 7.4 Actual causes and global exploration......Page 124 7.5 Conclusion......Page 127 8.1 Crustal elevation......Page 130 8.2 The “Temple of Serapis”......Page 131 8.3 Von Buch and the origin of mountain ranges......Page 138 8.4 Conclusion......Page 142 Part Two......Page 144 9.1 Brongniart’s global stratigraphy......Page 146 9.2 Fourier’s physics of a cooling earth......Page 149 9.3 Scrope’s directional geotheory......Page 151 9.4 Élie de Beaumont’s sequence of revolutions......Page 154 9.5 Conclusion......Page 158 10.1 The adequacy of actual causes......Page 160 10.2 Interpreting the Tertiary world......Page 162 10.3 Prévost’s reinterpretation of the Paris Basin......Page 165 10.4 Conclusion......Page 171 11.1 Fossil land surfaces and soils......Page 172 11.2 Buckland and the footprints of monsters......Page 176 11.3 First scenes from deep time......Page 178 11.4 Conclusion......Page 183 12.1 Tertiary geohistory......Page 186 12.2 Adolphe Brongniart: plant life on a cooling earth......Page 192 12.3 Tropics in the Arctic?......Page 197 12.4 Conclusion......Page 199 13.1 Alluvium and diluvium......Page 202 13.2 Alpine erratic blocks......Page 205 13.3 Erratic blocks in Scandinavia......Page 210 13.4 Esmark’s glacial conjecture......Page 214 13.5 Conclusion......Page 215 14.1 Bone caves for Buckland......Page 218 14.2 Buckland’s worldwide antediluvial fossils......Page 221 14.3 Fleming and the course of extinction......Page 224 14.4 Lyell the budding synthesizer......Page 226 14.5 Conclusion......Page 231 15.1 Scrope’s “Time!—Time!—Time!”......Page 234 15.2 Faunas and volcanoes in Auvergne......Page 241 15.3 Conclusion......Page 248 16.1 The question of contemporaneity......Page 250 16.2 Human fossils in Languedoc......Page 253 16.3 Province and metropolis......Page 257 16.4 Conclusion......Page 260 17.1 Geoffroy’s new transformism......Page 262 17.2 Lyell confronts Lamarck......Page 269 17.3 Conclusion......Page 273 Part Three......Page 276 18.1 Lyell on Scrope’s Auvergne......Page 278 18.2 Lyell as geological reformer......Page 282 18.3 Auvergne through Lyell’s eyes......Page 285 18.4 Conclusion......Page 290 19.1 Lyell and Murchison in southern France......Page 292 19.2 Lyell and Murchison in northern Italy......Page 295 19.3 Lyell in southern Italy......Page 297 19.4 Lyell in Sicily......Page 301 19.5 Conclusion......Page 306 20.1 Lyell’s homeward journey......Page 308 20.2 Parisian debates on the Tertiaries......Page 310 20.3 Diluvialists and fluvialists in London......Page 313 20.4 Sedgwick’s anniversary address......Page 318 20.5 Conclusion......Page 320 21.1 Introducing Lyell’s Principles......Page 322 21.2 The lessons of history......Page 326 21.3 The identity of past and present......Page 328 21.4 Refuting a directional geohistory......Page 330 21.5 Refuting a progressive history of life......Page 335 21.6 Lyell’s revival of geotheory......Page 337 21.7 Conclusion......Page 338 22.1 Lyell’s survey of actual causes......Page 340 22.2 Scrope on Lyell......Page 346 22.3 De la Beche and Conybeare join in......Page 349 22.4 Conclusion......Page 354 23.1 Two critics from Cambridge......Page 356 23.2 Lyell’s Continental reception......Page 361 23.3 The goal of Tertiary geohistory......Page 363 23.4 An actual cause in action......Page 365 23.5 “Bishops and enlightened saints”......Page 368 23.6 Conclusion......Page 370 24.1 The second volume of Lyell’s Principles......Page 372 24.2 The births and deaths of species......Page 374 24.3 Organic progress as an illusion......Page 379 24.4 Catastrophists and one uniformitarian......Page 381 24.5 Conclusion......Page 385 25.1 Lyell’s lectures......Page 388 25.2 A Continental interlude......Page 393 25.3 The final volume of Lyell’s Principles......Page 394 25.4 Lyell’s methods for geohistory......Page 396 25.5 Conclusion......Page 401 26.1 Lyell reconstructs the Tertiary era......Page 404 26.2 Geohistory with “no vestige of a beginning”......Page 409 26.3 Conclusion......Page 413 Part Four......Page 416 27.1 Contested meanings of “uniformity”......Page 418 27.2 De la Beche and “theoretical geology”......Page 422 27.3 Scrope and the revised Principles......Page 424 27.4 Sedgwick and “subterranean cookery”......Page 428 27.5 Conclusion......Page 430 28.1 Tournal confronts the savant world......Page 432 28.2 Schmerling’s human fossils in Belgium......Page 437 28.3 The first fossil primates......Page 442 28.4 Conclusion......Page 446 29.1 Natural theology and “scriptural” geology......Page 448 29.2 Stratigraphical foundations......Page 453 29.3 Paley geohistoricized......Page 457 29.4 Conclusion......Page 460 30.1 Agassiz and the age of fish......Page 462 30.2 Phillips’s Carboniferous benchmark......Page 466 30.3 Murchison’s Silurian and Sedgwick’s Cambrian......Page 469 30.4 Conclusion......Page 473 31.1 The “great Devonian controversy”......Page 476 31.2 Gressly’s concept of “facies”......Page 481 31.3 More scenes from deep time......Page 485 31.4 Conclusion......Page 490 32.1 The transformation of the Principles......Page 492 32.2 Catastrophes and directionality......Page 495 32.3 Refining Tertiary geohistory......Page 499 32.4 The “mystery of mysteries”......Page 504 32.5 Conclusion......Page 505 33.1 The question of crustal elevation......Page 508 33.2 Witnesses to elevation in South America......Page 511 33.3 Darwin’s theory of a dynamic earth......Page 514 33.4 Darwin’s test case in Scotland......Page 518 33.5 Conclusion......Page 523 34.1 Extending the geological deluge......Page 526 34.2 Erratics and icebergs......Page 530 34.3 The reconstruction of mega-glaciers......Page 533 34.4 Conclusion......Page 540 35.1 Agassiz’s “Ice Age” in the Alps......Page 542 35.2 Extending the Ice Age......Page 547 35.3 The Ice Age in Britain......Page 553 35.4 Conclusion......Page 557 36.1 The Pleistocene Ice Age......Page 560 36.2 Phillips and global geohistory......Page 564 36.3 Agassiz and the “genealogy” of life......Page 571 36.4 Whewell’s historical-causal science......Page 573 36.5 Conclusion......Page 575 Concluding (Un)Scientific Postscript......Page 578 1. Places and Specimens......Page 592 2. Manuscripts and Pictures......Page 594 3. Printed Sources: Primary......Page 595 4. Printed Sources: Secondary......Page 615 Index......Page 630 In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, scientists reconstructed the immensely long history of the earth—and the relatively recent arrival of human life. The geologists of the period, many of whom were devout believers, agreed about this vast timescale. But despite this apparent harmony between geology and Genesis, these scientists still debated a great many questions: Had the earth cooled from its origin as a fiery ball in space, or had it always been the same kind of place as it is now? Was prehuman life marked by mass extinctions, or had fauna and flora changed slowly over time?The first detailed account of the reconstruction of prehuman geohistory, Martin J. S. Rudwick’s Worlds Before Adam picks up where his celebrated Bursting the Limits of Time leaves off. Here, Rudwick takes readers from the post-Napoleonic Restoration in Europe to the early years of Britain’s Victorian age, chronicling the staggering discoveries geologists made during the period: the unearthing of the first dinosaur fossils, the glacial theory of the last ice age, and the meaning of igneous rocks, among others. Ultimately, Rudwick reveals geology to be the first of the sciences to investigate the historical dimension of nature, a model that Charles Darwin used in developing his evolutionary theory.Featuring an international cast of colorful characters, with Georges Cuvier and Charles Lyell playing major roles and Darwin appearing as a young geologist, Worlds Before Adam is a worthy successor to Rudwick’s magisterial first volume. Completing the highly readable narrative of one of the most momentous changes in human understanding of our place in the natural world, Worlds Before Adam is a capstone to the career of one of the world’s leading historians of science. (20080724) "The first detailed account of the reconstruction of prehuman geohistory, Martin J.S. Rudwick takes readers from the post-Napoleonic Restoration in Europe to the early years of Britain's Victorian age, chronicling the staggering discoveries geologists made during the period : the uncovering of the first dinosaur fossils, the glacial theory of the last Ice Age, and the meaning of igneous rocks, among others. Ultimately, Rudwick reveals geology to be the first of the sciences to investigate the historical dimension of nature."--Jaquette "The first detailed account of the reconstruction of prehuman geohistory, Martin J.S. Rudwick takes readers from the post-Napoleonic Restoration in Europe to the early years of Britain's Victorian age, chronicling the staggering discoveries geologists made during the period: the uncovering of the first dinosaur fossils, the glacial theory of the last Ice Age, and the meaning of igneous rocks, among others. Ultimately, Rudwick reveals geology to be the first of the sciences to investigate the historical dimension of nature."--Jacket In This Account Of The Reconstruction Of Prehuman Geohistory Rudwick Takes Readers From The Post-napoleonic Restoration In Europe To The Early Years Of Britain's Victorian Age Chronicling The Staggering Discoveries Made During The Period And The Efforts Made To Fit Them Into An Understanding Of The World. Martin J.s. Rudwick. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 567-603) And Index.