HISTORY OF GEOLOGY FROM 1780 TO 1835 173 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY FROM 1780 TO 1835 D R Oldroyd, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia ß 2005, Elsevier Ltd All Rights Reserved Introduction The years 1780–1835 mark the period when geology emerged as a science sui generis, distinct from mineralogy It began to have an institutional base in the form of scientific societies and began to be taught at universities (though there was earlier tuition in cognate subjects at mining academies in Europe) 1835 saw the establishment in England of the world’s first national geological survey (though there were a few earlier ‘private’surveys, or national ‘mineral surveys’) The period concerning us here has been called the ‘hinge of history’, with its shift from the eighteenth century Enlightenment to the Romantic Movement, the Gothic Revival, and extensive industrialization It was also a time of political upheaval, with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars There was a great expansion of European horizons, both in space and time It included notable explorations, such as those of Flinders and Baudin around Australia, d’Orbigny and von Humboldt in South America, and Darwin’s Beagle voyage America was extending westwards, and Russians were consolidating their hold in Siberia Much of India was under British rule and exploration was getting underway in Africa These explorations had economic and military imperatives, but were also of great scientific significance By 1835, the bounds of time of earlier theological constraints were truly burst by geologists, and during this ‘hinge period’ the Earth began to be seen as an object whose history could be revealed by empirical examination of rocks, fossils, and strata The cultural movement known as ‘historicism’ came to the fore, according to which things (like the principles of law) could supposedly be best understood by studying their history In this sense, geology fitted into the ‘spirit of the times’ Understanding of the Earth became ‘historicized’ That is one way of looking at the period of geology’s emergence But geology can also be seen as having emerged within the context of the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions: it was the practical men concerned with mining, quarrying, surveying, agriculture, etc., who were responsible for many of the discoveries on which rested the intellectual achievements of the ‘geological elite’, who established learned societies and developed high theory The ‘little men’, on this view, did as much to found the science as did the ‘gentlemanly geologists’ whose writings have since become well known to historians The period 1780–1835 is also interesting for the appearance of important rival geological theories, and the contests between supporters of the competing doctrines The so-called Neptunist and Vulcanist theories, associated particularly with the names of Abraham Gottlob Werner and James Hutton (see History of Geology Up To 1780, Famous Geologists: Hutton), offered radically different geological theories and effectively functioned as competing paradigms Likewise, there were strong differences of opinion (amounting to substantial philosophical differences), summarized by the terms ‘catastrophism’ and ‘uniformitarianism’ Debates on these matters ranged into the issue of the age of the Earth; the question of whether geological discoveries could or could not be reconciled with, or support, theological beliefs; and questions about the appropriate methodology for the geosciences Rocks and minerals were first clearly distinguished by Alexandre Brongniart (1827) The ‘Little Men’ and a Geological Map The name of William Smith has long been remembered for his discovery that different strata could be recognized and discriminated by means of their fossil contents (see Famous Geologists: Smith) Smith, who came from south-west England, was a surveyor and engineer who worked on road and canal projects, land drainage schemes, coal and ore prospecting, etc Living near Bath, he came to realize that there were two kinds of oolitic limestones with similar appearances but different fossils Further afield, chalks and greensands showed similar distinctions Accordingly, as his work gave him ample opportunity for observing and collecting, he began to assemble and arrange fossils according to what we would call their stratigraphic horizons He drew up a table (1799) listing the lithologically different strata of southern England (from coal to chalk), along with their characteristic fossils He then embarked on the huge project of trying to identify and enter on a coloured map the strata of the whole of southern Britain This singlehanded, hand-painted, map was issued in 1815 But the intellectual elite of the Geological Society (founded 1807) hardly gave credit where credit was due, and set about making their own map, which was issued in