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A Foretaste of GSA Memoir 216:

Revising the Revisions: James Hutton’s Reputation among

Geologists in the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

A.M. Celâl Şengör, İTÜ Maden Fakültesi, Jeoloji Bölümü ve This review of the literature clearly shows that the revisionists’
Avrasya Yerbilimleri Enstitüsü, Ayazağa 34469, Istanbul, Turkey; ideas are not correct. So, the question becomes why some histori-
sengor@itu.edu.tr ans of geology wrote things that belittle Hutton’s importance.
The answer to this “why” is not easy to produce and even harder
In Revising the Revisions: James Hutton’s Reputation among to demonstrate. Among the most important of the answers to this
Geologists in the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries question, I discuss especially four.
I tackle the problem resulting from a recent trend among some 1. The revisionist historians’ misconception of what science, and,
historians of geology of considering the Scottish polymath James specifically, geology, is about. They seem to consider observa-
Hutton’s (1726–1797) Theory of the Earth (Hutton, 1785, 1788, tions and methods of observation to be the main core of geology,
1795, 1899) the last of the “theories of the earth” genre of publi- rather than its theories; i.e., they think knowledge rather than
cations that had begun developing in the seventeenth century understanding is the core of science.
and to regard it as something behind the times already in the 2. Historians of geology, particularly those with a social science
late eighteenth century and which was subsequently remembered background, seem not adequately informed about the literature of
only because some later geologists, particularly Hutton’s coun- geology for the periods they write about.
tryman Sir Archibald Geikie (1835–1924), found it convenient to 3. One reason for the inadequate usage of the literature of geology
represent it as a precursor of the prevailing opinions of the day. is clearly the slackening standards of peer review, especially in
The problem stems from the observation that the available docu- private presses, including all the university presses.
mentation, published and unpublished, from the late eighteenth 4. Finally in at least one case, the religious feelings of one author
century to the date of publication of Geikie’s widely read book clearly caused him to favor his co-religionists against Hutton,
Founders of Geology in 1897, shows that Hutton’s theory was against all credible evidence.
considered as something completely new by his contemporaries, Memoir 216 was conceived as an antidote to some of what
very different from anything that preceded it, whether they I think are unfounded claims about James Hutton’s impact on
agreed with him or not, and that it was widely discussed both geology and the nature of geology itself.
in his own country and abroad—from St. Petersburg through Revising the Revisions
Europe to New York. By the end of the third decade in the James Hutton’s Reputation among Geologists in

nineteenth century, many very respectable geologists began the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Revising the Revisions: James
By A.M. Celâl S¸engör
seeing in him “the father of modern geology” even before Sir Hutton’s Reputation among
Archibald was born. To present some of these documents, I have Geologists in the Late Eighteenth
reviewed in Memoir 216 a small part of the available literature of and Nineteenth Centuries
geology from 1785 to 1897 in the Austrian, British, and Russian By A.M. Celâl Şengör
Empires, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the United MWR216, 150 p., plus indices,
States, and I have selected passages discussing Hutton’s ideas, 9780813712161, US$70.00;
his legacy, and his relevance to the current problems in geology member price US$49.00
at the times the documents I cite were written. Despite the small
selection, the book required citing more than 600 references and Buy at the GSA Store:
reading or skimming many more. Memoir 216 rock.geosociety.org/store.

www.geosociety.org/gsatoday 19