On the continent, indeed, the authority of Cuvier was supreme, and in his _Essay on the Theory of the Earth_, prefixed to his _Opus magnum_--the _Ossemens Fossiles_--the great naturalist threw the whole weight of his influence into the scale of Catastrophism. He maintained that a series of tremendous cataclysms had affected the globe--the last being the Noachian deluge--and that the floods of water that overspread the earth, during each of these events, had buried the various groups of animals, now extinct, that had been successively created. If anything had been wanted in England to support and confirm the views that were then supposed to be the only ones in harmony with the Scriptures, it was found in the great authority of Cuvier. As Zittel justly says, Cuvier's theory of 'World-Catastrophies'--'which afforded a certain scientific basis for the Mosaic account of the "Flood," was received with special cordiality in England, for there, more than in any other country, theological doctrines had always affected geological conceptions[28].' Britain, which had produced the great philosopher, Hutton, had now become the centre of the bitterest opposition to his teachings! But 'the darkest hour of night is that which precedes the dawn,' and while the forces of reaction in this country appeared to be triumphant over Hutton's teaching, there was in preparation, to use the words of Darwin, a 'grand work' ... 'which the future historian will recognise as having produced a revolution in natural science.' CHAPTER V THE REVOLT OF SCROPE AND LYELL AGAINST CATASTROPHISM The year 1797, in which the illustrious Hutton died, leaving behind him the noble fragments of a monumental work, was signalised by the birth of two men, who were destined to bring about the overthrow of Catastrophism, and to establish, upon the firm foundation of reasoned observation, the despised doctrine of Uniformitarianism or Evolution--as outlined by Generelli, Desmarest and Hutton. These two men were George Poulett Thomson (who afterwards took the name of Scrope) and Charles Lyell. Both of them were, from their youth upwards, brought under the strongest influences of the prevalent anti-evolutionary teachings; but both emancipated themselves from the effects of these teachings, being led gradually by their geological travels and observations, not only to reject their early faith, but to become the champions of Evolution.