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HISTORV Of GEOLOGV UP TO 1780 167

HISTORV OF GEOLOGV UP TO 1780

o Puche-Riart, Polytechnic University of , The Dawn of Madrid, Thinking about the first occurred when man, © 2005, Elsevier Ud. AII Rights Reserved. faced with natural phenomena such as and volcanoes, posed questions about such phenom­ ena and sought to provide answers in naturalistic Introduction terms. Practical matters, such as the task of prospect­ ing for resources, also stimulated interest in Ancient civilisations in contact with nature inquired the Earth. about their origins and about particular geodynamic phenomena. In most cases they satisfied themselves with empiric explanations; they even used deities in order to understand inexplicable situations. Little by little humans learnt how to observe their environment and arrange processes. During the Re­ naissance the first geologic principIes were born and this knowledge spread rapidly. Natural phenomena were understood in terms of dynamic cause-effect, although many dogmatic and magic interpretations persisted. Many authors agree that geology, began to be structured as a science in the second half of the eight­ eenth century with Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749­ 1817), father of (Figure 1). However, sorne geologic paradigms such as diluvialism existed before neptunism; all of them contained countless mistakes and ambiguities. This article outlines the period up until 1780, which thus incorporates the work of (see Famous : Hutton). His ideas were im­ portant in the development of geology, more specifically relating to the origins and dating of rocks. Geology was not completely defined till the birth of at the end of the eighteenth Figure 1 Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817). Father 01 century and Palaeontology at around 1830. Neptunism. 168 HISTORV OF GEOLOGV UP TO 1780

The Greek philosophers thought that the universe kingdom, with and smelting practices, and was governed by unchanging principIes and with with the characters, occurrences, and uses of many intelligible and discoverable natural laws. This con­ mineral substances. trasted with the mythopoeic or magical explanations On observing shells in the , Ovid (43 of nature found more generally in the ancient world Bc-17 or 18 AD) inferred that those lands had for­ and in non-scientific cultures today. merly been covered by the sea. He also realised how In his Histories, Herodotus of Halicarnassus fluvial valleys could be formed and how water (Ca 484-425 BC) spoke of the sedimentary loads of gradually reduced relief. The materials swept along the Nile and of the slow growth of its delta. This would be deposited, lower down, in flooded areas, was perhaps the first recorded statement based on where on drying and hardening they would become observation indicating an awareness of the magni­ rocks. We have for the first time the pattern: , tude of geological time. But myth and naturalistic transportation, , and lithification. explanation were intertwined in Greek thought. The idea of the regeneration of and Plato (427 or 428-348 BC) (in Phaedo, 111-112) in mines was advanced by Pliny's teacher, Papirio described the Earth as having internal passages carry­ Fabiano, an idea still maintained in the seventeenth ing "a vast tide of water, and huge subterranean century, as in the case of Alvaro Alonso Barba in El streams of perennial rivers, and springs hot and cold, arte de los metales (1637). In this work, the Earth and a great fire, and great rivers offire, and streams of supposedly had the ability to 'reproduce', as envis­ liquid mud, thick or thin", as well as a great internal aged in antiquity. chasm, Tartarus. Water moved with a 'see-saw' During the Dark and Middle Ages, 's influ­ motion within the Earth, like the tides, and produced ence continued in the West, but linked with Christian springs that fed rivers and streams, and returned to the viewpoints. Thus, for example, St Isidore of Seville's sea and thence to Tartarus. The surging waters also (560-636), in Etymologies (a work considered to be generated great winds inside the Earth. Volcanoes the first encyc1opedia), pointed to the organic origin were produced by the escape of rivers of fire from of , but connected them with the Flood. within. These speculations were naturalistic, but also Alchemy coming from Persia (eighth-nineth cen­ explicitly said by Socrates to be 'myth'. Such ideas turies) influenced the works of Ibn Sina () were to endure until the eighteenth century. (930-1037) and subsequently Christian authors like Along similar lines Aristotle (384-322 BC), a pupil Alfonso X (1221-1284), Raymond Lully (1235­ of Plato, suggested that earthquakes were caused by 1315), Arnaldo Vilanova (ca 1238-1311), Ulisse subterranean winds passing through cavities within Aldrovandi (1527-1605), Andreas Libavius (1560­ the Earth. Fossils were nature's failed attempts in the 1616), and Alonso Barba (1569-1662). There de­ creation of living beings (the theory of vis plastica). veloped the so-called theory of the opposites whereby Although sorne authors consider of things combined or repelled one another according to Ephesus (ca 371-ca 287 BC) to have written the first their 'sympathies' or 'antipathies'. Sorne spoke of the mineralogical treatise, Perilithon, there are references gender of minerals. For example, the word 'arsenic' to a work, nowlost, written by his teacher Aristotle. In derives from the Greek word for maleo Minerals sup­ the surviving Meteorologica, Aristotle ascribed the posedly formed from the appropiate combinations. origin of minerals and metals to dry/smoky or moistl Alchemy was the forerunner of inorganic chemistry. vaporous exhalations from within the Earth. Another feature of the Middle Ages was the pro­ Minerals' curative purposes were considered in liferation of 'lapidaries': list of stones, etc., with Dioscorides' (ca 77 AD). Processes descriptions of their properties, uses, etc. Ibn Sina such as saline crystallization or exfoliation were wrote De lapidibus, in which minerals were c1assified remarked upon, and origins of substances of sup­ according to the quadrichotomy: stones/; posed medicinal value were mentioned. This medical metals ('fusibles'); sulphurous fossils (combustibles); tradition was to continue in the attempted mineral! salts ('solubles'). Ahmad Al Biruni (973-after 1050) chemical cures advocated by Paracelsus in the mentioned more than 100 minerals and metals in his sixteenth century. treatise on gems (Kitab-al-jamahir), and accurately The Romans were less interested in abstract know­ determined specific gravities for several types. Also ledge than were the Hellenes, but were practical, and Alfonso X of Castile (1221-1284) (Alfonso the Wise), skilled in the use of stone for building. The most translated numerous Arab lapidaries, where the prop­ notable Latin 'scientific' text was 's erties of minerals supposedly varied according to the Historia naturalis (first century), consisting of 37 positions of the heavenly bodies. Al Biruni, born in books, uncritically compiled from 2000 works of Uzbekistan and a great traveller, was also notable antiquity. The last five books dealt with the mineral for his studies of rivers. He recorded evidence for HISTORV OF GEOLOGV UP TO 1780 169 changes in the course ofthe Amu Darya River, and the and outer ). As the globe cooled, the crust cracked decrease of size down the Ganges. So (ana­ and collapsed, thus creating mountains and . In chronistically) he could be called a fluvial this speculative theory we have the first attempt to geomorphologist. explain the internal structure ofthe eEarth in mechan­ The greatest Mediaeval author on the mineral king­ ical terms (i.e., in terms ofthe 'mechanical philosophy' dom was Albertus Magnus (St Albert of Cologne), according to which all natural phenomena were ex­ Bishop of Ratisbon and doctor of the Church plained in terms of matter and motion). Descartes also (1193-1280). Anticipating Renaissance authors, he saw the planet as a great 'still', heated by its internal stated that experience alone was the source of know­ material. So sea water penetrating into the Earth was ledge of physical things. He tried to link faith and distilled in the interior, leaving the salt there. reason when he pointed out that the sea could never Descartes' theory of a central heat re-appeared in have covered the whole Earth by natural causes. In the work of the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1601­ De mineralibus he recognised about 100 mineral 1680), Mundus subterraneus (1665), which proposed species. Both minerals and rocks were thought to a great central pyrophylacium or repository of heat, have formed from molten masses. linked also with ideas going back to Plato. The main repository was connected by channels to other lesser The First Geological Principies: The fires, and the network of interconnected channels Observation Phase served as conduits for volcanoes at various places on the surface. In addition to the pyrophylacium, there With the Renaissance, the geocentric Aristotelian were aerophylacia, through which circulated the sub­ and Thomist universe collapsed in the 'Copernican terranean winds that supposedly caused earthquakes; Revolution', and observation rather than 'authority' and hydrophylacia, or water-containing caverns, became central to science. For example, Bernard which were fed from the sea and sustained springs. Palissy (1510-1590), pointed out "1 have never had (The model had similarities to that in Plato's Phaedo.) any other books than the skies and the Earth whose Earthquakes gave rise to the formation of mountains. pages are open to all". Systematic ordering of the Kircher also revived the organicist theories, speaking observations facilitated the establishment of the first about the uterus of the globe, and vis petrifica and vis geological principIes. Information also spread faster seminalis (petrifying and seminal powers). The Earth thanks to the printing press. This was particularly was a living organism with a capacity for reproduc­ true of great natural catastrophes, such as the erup­ tion and the other functions ofa living being (so inside tion of Vesuvius in 1538, which prompted interest in the Earth salt water becomes fresh through a quasi­ the Earth. 'metabolic' process). Thereby both external and Leonardo da Vinei (1452-1519) visited the Alps internal 'geodynamic' phenomena were explained. and realised that the geological structure was the Niels Stensen (1638-1686) (Nicolaus Stenonis or same on both sides of the fluvial valleys. The rivers Steno) (see Famous Geologists: Steno), a Danish carried away materials to the sea, where they might physician in the service of the Mediei family in Flor­ bury shells. When land rose up it formed hills that, on ence, was less speculative and more original. He being cut by rivers, reveal layers or strata. Shells in authored De solido intra solidum de naturaliter con­ such strata were not carried there by the Flood. We tento dissertationis prodromus (1669), in which, have one of the first visions, albeit incomplete, of the from the study of quartz crystals, the law of the geological cycle. constancy of interfacial angles was first recognized. Palissy showed that what are today called rudist With Steno, we also have what might be called the lamellibranchs are 'lost' species. This recognition of first 'stratigraphic diagram'. accumulate, extinction was an important contribution towards forming horizontal layers in which marine or terres­ recognition of the Earth's antiquity. Interest in fossils trial fossils were buried, the oldest layers being below developed little by little, as when Father Jeronimo and the younger ones aboye. These layers could be Feijoo y Montenegro (1676-1764) also eited discov­ undercut by erosion, fracturing and collapsing. Then eries oflost species. There was still a long way to go to new horizontallayers were deposited, at an angle to before fossils were used to determine the relative the earlier ones. One of geology's main problems, to chronology of the landscape. establish a chronological arder of events, had begun In his Principia philosophiae (1644) the French to be resolved. (Steno's principIe of superposition was philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) considered relatively trivial: the lowest layer of bricks in a wall the Earth as an old cooling star. There was incandes­ is put in place before the upper ones. But it required cent material in its interior, around which there was a imagination to apply this idea to the easily observed layered structure (metallic, heavy material, air-water, layered rocks.) 170 HISTORV OF GEOLOGV UP TO 1780

But stratigraphy had still to be put together. scholars who sought to reconcile Jewish, Christiar Giovanni Arduino (1714-1795) made the first chron­ and pagan historical records. Ussher's date for th ostratigraphic division (with geological plan and Earth's creation (4004 BC) became the best knowr section inc1uded) when he divided the rocks of the as printed in the margins in Lloyd's edition of th Alpine landscape into: 1) Primary: formed by quartz­ 'KingJames' Bible (1701). ites, and slates; 2) Secondary: formed by , Outside the religious arena, Gottfried Liebniz , and shales; 3) : formed by lime­ (1646-1716) Protogea (1684) proposed that stones, sandstones, gypsums, and c1ays; and 4) A11u­ had been formed by two processes: 1) the cooling e vium. The idea was set forth in two letters addressed fused material to give an Earth with a 'glassy' surfact to Antonio Va11isnieri (published 1760). 2) the action of waters on this hard surface and th The seventeenth century was also characterized in concretion of solid elements contained in aqueou the West by attempts to reconcile observations of solution. Leibniz's ideas thus anticipated the lat with the Bible, aligning 'faith and 18th century debate between 'PlutonistsNulcanist~ reason', in what was ca11ed 'physico-theology', or and 'Neptunists'. the attempted interweaving of natural philosophy José Vicente del Olmo (1611-1699), in his Net (science) and religion. Such work continued we11 Description of the Orb (1681), stated that the moun into the nineteenth century, and even to the presento tains were raised up due to internal exhalations. Th Thomas Burnet's (1636-1715) work Telluris theo­ elevated areas were then eroded by rain, wind, alli ria sacra (1681) provides a good example. For this river floods. Thus a balance was established in natun Anglican c1eric, the Earth's initial chaotic material rather than a single progression of change such a was ordered by gravity, with the heaviest parts in Burnet envisaged. But let it be remembered that Senec the centre and the lightest parts at the surface. The (ca 3 Bc-65 AD) and the Epicureans had long befor result was a concentric structure: 1) a Kircherian or envisaged a 'balance of nature'. Cartesian igneous core; 2) liquid; 3) an oily layer; and 4) an outer crust hardened by the sun (ossatura Geology as a Science is Born telluris montium). When the central vapours acted on the outer crust it cracked and broke, giving rise to The eighteenth century was characterized by the eco the Flood ("a11 the fountains of the great deep [were] nomic development of the western nations and th broken up": Gen. 7, 11). Ifthe Earth had not been flat, development of democratic ideals. Inspired by th it could not have been covered by the waters (here accomplishments of science and technology, the En reason and design were introduced). After the Flood, lightenment world-view, which saw things as essen the waters supposedly withdrew, taking much with tia11y inte11igible with problems being capable o them, thus causing the Earth's relief. Such theories, solution by rational beings with minds unc10uded b: connecting the Noachian Flood with geological obser­ superstition, was to be driven on by the idea of pro vations, carne to be ca11ed 'diluvialist'. An antecedent gress, which was born with it. New centres of teach of 'c1assical' diluvialism was perhaps the Spaniard ing such as Gottingen University were founded, ane José González Salas (1588-1651) who, in 1650, scientific publications for the technical and educate, stated that the Flood changed the face of the Earth. bourgeoisie, such as 's Encyclopédie For Isaac Newton's successor at Cambridge, appeared. Experimentation also acquired greate William Whiston (1671-1752), a comet caused importance, even in the study of the Earth. It was : water escape from the Earth's interior, while for period of glorification of the rational, where i John Woodward (1665-1728), the waters supposedly seemed that the only things that mattered wen dissolved the Earth, which was then converted to its those that could be counted, measured, weighed, o present layered state as matter separated out rationa11y calculated. according to the law of gravity (Essay Toward a The end of the eighteenth century coincided witl Natural History ofthe Earth, 1695). the (England) whose founda The age of the Earth was calculated in accordance tions were iron, coal, steam, and textile manufac with the biblical records, as Alfonso X the Wise had tures. The need for additional natural resource done in his General History. This was likewise done boosted mining, and between 1766 and 1788 thl by the Cambridge c1assicist John Lightfoot (1642­ mining academies of Freiberg, Chemnitz (now Banks~ 1644); the Anglican Primate of Ireland, James Ussher Stiavnica), St Petersburg, Almaden, and Paris wefl (1650); and William Lloyd, Bishop of Worcester founded in that order. 'Subterranean geometry' an< (1701). They arrived at various values between were taught and mineralogy began t< 3928 and 5199 years old. These authors, who today develop into petrography, stratigraphy, palaeon may seem detached from reality, were in fact careful tology (later), and, eventua11y, geology (around thl HISTORV Of GEOLOGV UP TO 1780 171

end of the eighteenth century). Curiously, Britain was geognosy or geology, 'oryctognosy' or mineralogy. backward in such centralized technical education. With Werner (and before him in Russia with Lomo­ Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750-1817) was ap­ nosov [1711-1765]), mineralogy acquired its own pointed to the Mining Academy of Freiberg in Saxony body of doctrine. He classified minerals according in 1775 where he developed his Neptunist theory to their external characteristics (physical properties), (1777), which proposed that all rocks, even , as Linnaeus (another important Enlightenment were formed by chemical precipitation from a figure) had done with plants and animals, between primordial or al/gemeines Gewaesser. (There 1735 and 1760. The observation of crystalline forms were, however, precursors of this theory, such as the was to lead to the birth of . This sci­ Frenchman Benóit de Maillet [1755].) According to ence had taken its first steps beyond Steno thanks to Werner, by successive sedimentation onto an irregular the Swiss naturalist Moritz Anton Capeller (1685­ terrestrial core, four types of formations were sup­ 1769) with his Prodomus cristal/ographie (1723) posed to be deposited: 1) Primitive: crystalline rocks and the Frenchman Jean Baptiste Louis Romé de such as and gneiss; 2) Transitional: lime­ l'Isle's (1736-1790) Essai de cristal/ographie (1772), stones, slates and quartzites; 3) Floetz: formed from soon to be developed further by René-Juste Haüy. what we consider today to be the layered rocks from Werner was to have many disciples who would the Permian to the Cenozoic; and 4) Alluvial: (super­ write important pages in the annals of geology during ficial) deposits. (The 'Transition' category was absent the nineteenth century, such as Guyton de Morveau from initial exposition of Werner's theory.) These (1737-1816), Horace Bénédict de Saussure (1740­ 'chronostratigraphic' divisions had previously been 1799), Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu (1750-1801), adumbrated in Germany by others such as Johann Juan José Elhuyar (1754-1896), Fausto Elhuyar Lehmann (1719-1767) and Georg Christian Füchsel (1755-1833), Andrés Manuel del Río (1765-1849), (1722-1773), and also by the German traveller, Peter (1769-1859), Leopold von Simon Pallas (1741-1811), in the Urals (1768). The Buch (1774-1853), Robert Jameson (1774-1854), Primitive formations would be found in the central etc. They tried to use his stratigraphic order, worked parts of ranges, from which the water out in Saxony, as a 'paradigm' for examining and would have withdrawn first. interpreting rocks in other parts of the world. Werner's theory gave an approximation to the Another notable eighteenth-century authority was order of rocks observed in the field. But there were the keeper of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris: Georges questions that Werner's theories couldn't solve: Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788), author of a great 36-volume Histoire naturel/e. In a supple­ 1. Where did the water of the supposed primordial ment of this work entitled Époques de la nature ocean go to? (1778) he put forward three basic ideas: 1) a longer 2. Is the Earth inactive? (For Werner, sloping strata duration of geologica~ time (compared with the Bib­ corresponded to margin sedimentation.) lical account); 2) organic , preparing the 3. How were rocks such as , found on the tops way for transmutationism and evolutionism; and of hills, to be explained? (Werner thought that 3) . basalt was also precipitated from his ocean, the Like Descartes, Buffon thought that mountains level of which supposedly rose again for sorne were formed by contraction during the Earth's unexplained reason.) cooling. He also examined the problem of the age of 4. How were mineral veins and dykes to be ac­ the Earth experimental/y, heating spheres of different counted for? (Werner thought that material sizes and measuring how long they took to cool until might have precipitated from aboye filling rents they could be touched; and by analogy he estimated in the crust.) the possible age of the Earth. He arrived at the con­ 5. How were volcanoes to be explained? (Werner clusion that it would have taken 74832 years to have thought that they might be due to the combustion cooled to its present temperature (and privately of subterranean coals, etc.) speculated on the possibility of a much greater age). 6. How could the universal ocean dissolve so much Through further experimentation Buffon obtained siliceous matter? (This question was never silicates by melting clays. Nevertheless, he held to answered satisfactorily, though the occurrence of sorne older ideas, such as the view that earthquakes siliceous springs and quartz veins in sorne rocks were caused by explosions of gases in the Earth's suggested precipitation from solution.) cavities or that volcanoes were produced by the Not everything that carne from Werner was combustion of sulphur and bitumen. wrong. He praised observation and the use of scien­ The hydrological cycle was also quantified, in ac­ tific method and he assisted into the emergence of cordance with the calculations of Edmé Marriotte 172 HISTORV Of GEOLOGV UP TO 1780

(1690), Pierre Perrault (1674), and the suggestion (1760), tried to calm things down by pointing out thl of Edmund Halley (1714-1716) that one could meas­ greater the force of the previous one and that repeti ure the rate of increase of salinity in lakes that had tions of earthquakes are less like1y. In Germany, 1m no discharge rivers, and then gauge how long it manue1 Kant argued that earthquakes had natura might have taken for the ro acquire their causes and had nothing to do with the moral condi salinity. Neverthe1ess, eighteenth-century geology tion of mankind. But they could remind us not to tr~ was not obviously an experimental science. Ir was to find happiness in worldly goods. Old earthquaki not then possible to reproduce variables such as pres­ myths endured neverthe1ess, and it was only at thi sure, temperature, or time, which reach very high end of the nineteenth century that geologists began te values in many of the processes occurring in nature. suspect the main causes of tremors. In the eighteenth century there were still authors who regarded fossils as 'figured stones', as did the French physician Pierre Barrere, author of Observa­ See Also tions sur ['origine et la formation des pierres figurées Biblical Geology. Famous Geologists: Hutton; Stene (1746). The diluvialist school was also active. Thus, Geomythology. From 1780 Te for the Spaniard, Father Antonio Torrubia, in his 1835. Minerals: Definition and Classification. Strati Aparato para la historia natural (1754), fossils were graphical Principies. represented as remains of the Flood. Neverthe1ess, a significant rejection of diluvialism occurred in the mid-eighteenth century, mainly in central Europe, Further Reading with authors, such as the Gottingen professor Samue1 Ellenberger F (1988) Histoire de la Geologie Tome 1 De Christian Hollmann (1753), while the Swiss cleric Anciens a la premiere moitié du XVIIe siecle. Paris Johan Georg Sulzer (1762), pointed out the marine Technique et Documentation - Lavoisier. origin of fossils. Numerous examples were described Ellenberger F (1994) Histoire de la Geologie Tome 2 L and the natural hisrory cabinets were Eilled with spe­ grande éclosion et ses prémices 1660-1810. Paris cimens, but without an agreed system for their cata­ London, and New York: Technique et Documentation· loguing. Although the influential Werner rejected Lavoisier. Faul H and Faul C (1983) It Began with a Stone: A Histor fossils as the basis for the study of stratification, ofGeology from the Stone Age to Age ofPlate Tectonic! they began to gain in importance, and increased New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toranto and Singaporf knowledge began to pave the way for the birth oE John Wiley & Sonso stratigraphy, at the end of the century, and of scien­ Gaudant G and Bouillet G (2000) La genese et l'interpréta tific palaeontology, which entered at the end of the tion des 'fossiles' dans la science classique: de la Renais eighteenth century. sance aux Lumieres. Bulletin de la Société Géologique d Practical matters were also important in the En­ 171: 587-601. lightenment. Between 1778 and 1782, Jean Étienne López Azcona JM (1985) Los jheólogos. Revista d Guettard (1715-1786) and Inspector General of Materiales y Procesos Geológicos 3: 179-187. Mines Antoine Grimoald Monet (1734-1817) jointly Mather KF and Mason SL (1939) A Source Book ii published their Atlas minéralogique de la France, Geology. New York and London: McGraw-Hill. Oldrayd DR (1996) Thinking about the Earth: A History G which showed the distribution of deposits of eco­ Ideas in Geology. Cambridge (Mass): Harvard Universit nomic significance across their country. In Sweden, Press. the chemist (1777) initiated general Pelayo F (1996) Del Diluvio al megaterio. Los orígenes d methods of mineral analysis in the 'humid' way, la paleontología en España. Madrid: Consejo Superior d bringing mineral substances into solution by the Investigaciones Ciéntificas. action of acids or alkalis and then identifying com­ Rappaport R (1997) When Geologists were Historiam ponents by a sequence of precipitation reactions. Pro­ 1665-1750. Ithaca and London: Cornell Universit specting for caal was enhanced by boring techniques, Press. but without palaeontological control the results Rossi P (1984) The Dark Abyss ofTime: The History ofth were not always useful through misidentification of Earth & the History of Nations from Hooke to Vice Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. strata. Sequeiros L (2003) Las raíces de la Geologia: Nicolas Stenc The great catastrophe of the Lisbon on los estratos y el diluvio universal. Enseñanza de la 1 November, 1775, sowed pessimism in the scientific Ciencias de la Tierra (10,3): 217-242. world. There were many, including Buffon, who Wagenbreth O (1999) Geschichte der Geologie in Deutsch thought of the progressive degradation of the cooling land. Stuttgart: Georg Thieme Verlag. globe. But in Spain, the naturalist Brother Benito Wendell E Wilson (1994) The history of mineral collectin¡ Feijoo y Montenegro, in his Cartas eruditas y curiosas Mineralogical record 25(6): 1530-1799.