454 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



of "Neptunism"; he believed that all mineral species, even basalt, are pre- 

 cipitated in water. The narrowness of his conclusions was largely due to 

 the fact that he never made any journeys; he presumed that the geological 

 conditions all over the world were like those in his own country. The energy 

 with which he defended his views was, however, impressive, and his pupils, 

 who came from all parts of the world, endeavoured faithfully to apply the 

 master's doctrines, however difficult they might prove to be in practice. The 

 whole of the earliest generation of geologists, as a matter of fact, shared 

 this failing of Werner's — even the scientist who is named with Werner as 

 the creator of geology, Hutton, had never been outside his own country. 



James Hutton (172.6-97) was the son of a Scottish landowner, and 

 studied medicine in his youth, but, having inherited a fortune, he after- 

 wards devoted himself entirely to scientific research, especially geology. It 

 was not until late in life that he published the work Theory of the Earth, in 

 which he expounds his original ideas, though in a not very clear form. He 

 considers that geology has nothing to do with the history of creation; its 

 function is to describe the rock and earth strata now existing and to account 

 for their origin. He believes that the present rock-beds have arisen through 

 the destruction of older strata, similar to that which takes place daily 

 through the influence of water. This principle of explaining the past out 

 of the present represents his most valuable contribution to the development 

 of geology, though his own applications of that principle were often not 

 very successful. 



It was not possible to ascertain the reciprocal age of the different rock 

 strata, and thereby also to create a history of the evolution of the earth's 

 surface, until attention had been paid to the remains of living creatures that 

 are found in the various geological beds. This, indeed, Buffon had already 

 done, but the one who really systematized palaeontology was Cuvier. His 

 work in this sphere has already been described and its deep significance 

 pointed out; his catastrophe theory, the gist of which has likewise been 

 explained above, had disastrous consequences. Its influence was felt least in 

 England, where geology was developed independently in this field also. The 

 scientist who introduced into that country the knowledge of fossils as a 

 guide to geological research was William Smith (1769-183 9). Born of poor 

 parents in the country, he received a deficient school-education and after- 

 wards became apprentice to a surveyor, who taught him sound professional 

 knowledge, with the result that he was sought after as a surveyor and level- 

 ler, making a fortune in that profession and at the same time having oppor- 

 tunities for studying very different geological strata and rock formations. 

 He quickly came to realize that these possessed a settled order of succession 

 and that different animals and vegetable remains characterize the different 

 stratifications. The fossils he himself was unable to determine, this being 



