Geology, Fossils

1
Geology, Fossils Transmutation (1690s to 1790s)
1) How old is the earth? How has it changed over
time? 2) What are fossils? 3) Are species fixed
or have they changed over time?
Where did Noahs flood, the Deluge, fit in?
Most naturalists accept the flood as historical
(before 1750)
Explain transport deposition of fossils w/
Deluge
Debates over nature of the Deluge miraculous vs.
natural event
2
In regard to the first aspect of the earth,
Scripture and Nature agree in this, that all
things were covered with water . . . Nature
proves that the unevenness was great, while
Scripture makes mention of mountains at the time
of the flood. But when those mountains were
formed, whether they were identical with
mountains of the present day . . . neither
Scripture nor Nature declares. Nicolaus Steno
(1669)
The question of the origin of fossils entails
many large problems . . . One cannot say that
these forms, so often found, are sports of
nature, the similarities they usually have to
living shells being too notable and too regular .
. . The problem is to figure out what could have
scattered them in so many different places and so
far from the sea. Jean Astruc (1708)
3
John Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History
of the Earth (1695)
1) fossil shells are organic in origin
2) the Deluge accounts for transport deposition
William Whiston, New Theory of the Earth (1696)
1) earth created by a comet (natural event)
2) flood caused by another comet (natural event)
Comte de Buffon, The Epochs of Nature (1778)
1) six periods or ages in the history of the earth
2) the earth develops over time molten state,
crust solidifies, water vapor condenses, ocean
retreats
4
Theories of the Earth Fire Water
Vulcanism James Hutton (1726-1797)
1) earthquakes gradually elevate mountains,
central heat hardens sediment
2) land masses slowly eroded by wind, rain, rivers
Neptunism Abraham Werner (1749-1817)
1) earths original crust irregular rigid
2) great ocean retreats, exposed rocks eroded by
wind water
5
Primary Source
Suppose I had found a watch upon the ground,
and it should be enquired how the watch happened
to be in that place . . . The inference, we
think, is inevitable that the watch must have
had a maker that there must have existed, at
some time and in some place or other, an
artificer or artificers who formed it for the
purpose which we find it actually to answer who
comprehended its construction, and designed its
use . . . There cannot be design without a
designer . . .
SOURCE William Paley (1743-1805), Natural
Theology (1802)
6
Primary Source
Organic life beneath the shoreless waves Was born
and nursd in Oceans pearly caves First forms
minute, unseen by spheric glass, Move on the mud,
or pierce the watery mass These, as successive
generations bloom, New powers acquire, and larger
limbs assume Whence countless groups of
vegetation spring, And breathing realms of fin,
and feet, and wing.
SOURCE Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), The Temple of
Nature (1803)