How to Use the Popular Science Library; History of Science; General IndexServiss, Garrett Putman
History
How to Use the Popular Science Library; History of Science; General Index
Serviss, Garrett Putman
Popular science library; Science -- History
"The Theory of the Earth," of Dr. James Hutton (1726-1797), was
published in 1785, and in an enlarged form in 1795. This book described
the metamorphoses of sand into sandstones, quartzites, schists, and
other rock formations; the work of floods and lava floods; the
sculpturing powers of streams, rains, and winds, etc. He indicated the
effects of the alternate sinking and raising of strata through earth
shrinkings and volcanic phenomena, and taught that purely physical
causes can be found for every geological effect.
Playfair's "Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth"
augmented the teachings of Hutton's book, while works by Jameson,
Kirwan, Boué, Sir James Hall, Daubrée, St. Claire-Deville, Buckland,
Sedgwick, Bakewell, Breislak, Maclure, and others rapidly appeared
sustaining the Huttonian, or the Wernerean theories of geological
deposition.
The work of James Sowerby (1757-1822), entitled "The Mineral
Conchology of Great Britain" and that of James de Carle Sowerby
(1781-1871), published between 1812 and 1845, marked the establishment
of paleontology as a science. Both father and son were well-trained
naturalists and artists, and, like William Smith, reproduced the
fossils and their containing rocks to scale and in natural colors.
These works greatly simplified the labors of field geologists in
identifying rock strata and type fossils.
In Germany geology was worked out by Baron von Schlotheim (1764-1882),
Goldfuss (1782-1848), and Count Munster (1776-1844). Brocchi
(1772-1826) described Italian fossil strata.
The "Geological Classification of Rocks," of MacCulloch, marked
the separation of petrology as a science from descriptive geology.
MacCulloch noted that the ancient granites and granite schists are
among the oldest rock forms.
Von Humboldt, Murchison, Lyell, De la Beche, Von Buch, Elie de
Beaumont, Holley, Geikie, Bonney, Wollaston, Scrope and Daubeny
were among the pioneer geologists in Europe, while James Dwight Dana
(1818-1895), E. S. Dana, Conrad, Hitchcock, Warren, Lesley, Fremont,
and others published descriptive geological accounts in the United
States.
References to the geology and minerals of New Mexico were made in
Humboldt's "New Spain." Greenhow's work on Oregon and California,
published in 1845, and Lewis and Clark's reports added much to our
knowledge of American topography and geology. These reports were
followed by those of Stanton, Clarence King, Hague, Emmons, Custer,
Powell, Davis, Gilbert, Agassiz, and others which dealt with various
phases of American geology, paleontology, glaciation, and mineralogy,
and prepared the way for the publication of the valuable works of Dana,
Williams, Iddings, Washington, Pirsson, Clarke, Grabau, Brush, and
others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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