310 Britain's Heritage of Science 



Sedgwick of such fundamental importance that he called 

 Smith " the Father of English Geology." 1 The majority 

 of the names, Lias, Gault, Clunch, etc., which he applied 

 to the sedimentary formations in England, were only 

 names used by local workmen for certain kinds of deposit, 

 but they have been retained and are now the alphabet of 

 stratigraphical classification throughout the world. 



As the work of examining the visible crust of the earth 

 proceeded men must often have raised the question how did 

 Nature bring about these vast changes ? 



Dr. James Hutton (1726-1797), who in qualifying himself 

 for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine had familiarized himself 

 with the methods of scientific research, had many interesting 

 questions forced upon his notice in the cultivation of his estate 

 in Norfolk. These he attacked by strict inductive methods, 

 but the theory which has always been most especially asso- 

 ciated with his name and which now forms the foundation of 

 geological research relates to the manner of the building up 

 of the crust of the earth and the production of its subse- 

 quent modifications. These, he contended, had been brought 

 about by agents and processes still seen in active operation 

 somewhere on the earth, and in 1785 he communicated to the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh these conclusions. John Playfair 

 (1748-1819), his pupil, published in 1802 his classic work 

 entitled " Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth," 

 and demonstrated the igneous origin of granite and the work 

 of the agents of erosion in the production of scenery. It often 

 happens that a disciple of the originator of a new idea says 

 and writes more in defence of the theory than the original 

 author himself. We heard more about evolution from 

 Huxley than from Darwin. 



Many fierce controversies arose around and about the 

 principal matters in dispute between Huttonians and Wer- 

 nerians as to the relative importance of fire and water in 

 geological phenomena, all of which have had the useful effect 

 of turning men to seek facts from Nature in support of their 

 own several views. 



The school of Catastrophists which had indulged in wild 



1 Proc. Geol. Soc., Vol. 



