GEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, VOL. 25,61-63 (1990)

BOOK REVIEWS

A CHRONOLOGY OF GEOLOGICAL THINKING FROM ANTIQUITY TO 1899 by Susan J. Thompson, Scarecrow Press Inc., Metuchen, New Jersey and London, 1988. No. of pages: 328. Price f22.10 (hardback). Agents: Bailey Bros and Swinfen, Folkstone.

This is a very unusual book - unique I think. It is a list of geological ‘discoveries’ arranged chronologically by years and alphabetically by discoverer’s name within years. It arose from the author attempting to make sense of the unrelated historical introductions to the various courses in geology that she attended as an undergraduate. She continued the work after graduating but the book retains the note-form to be expected in a well-constructed set of student’s notes. I estimate there are about 2200 discoveries attributed to about 700 authors (Figure 1).

1000 7

. O 0 L 2000 BC

1160 (29)

0 lOOOAD 2OOOAD

Figure I . Increase of discoveries with time. Numbers in brackets are the discoveries in each interval per author.

For each discovery, reference is given to a work which recognizes the importance of the discovery, there being about 210 of these sources from which she compiled the book. Down the left-hand side of each page is listed the full bibliographic reference to each discovery paper or book and down the right-hand side of the page are listed

the discoveries, presented in Ms Thompson’s own words. These are stripped down to absolute essentials; very few run to as many as 10 half-lines, most are only two or three half lines. The discoveries include not only first- time discoveries but also rediscoveries, erroneous discoveries, and erroneous rediscoveries. Thus, between 1795 and 1840 erratics were discovered to be ice-carried 14 times (including James Hutton 1799, flood-carried seven times (including James Hall 1838), iceberg-carried four times (including Charles Lye11 1838), volcanic- deposited three times, and ocean-current-carried six times. Also between 1763 and 1814 basalt was discovered to be igneous 10 times and between 1770 and 1816 was discovered to be of aqueous origin 10 times. ‘Discovery’is perhaps not the best word to use but it is difficult to think of a better one. The book includes an index of the authors of the works containing the discoveries and of the authors of the source works that recognized the discoveries.

The resultant book is therefore, if not very readable in the normal sense, at least very browseable to anyone with any interest in the history of the development of geology. Most unfortunately, however, there is no index of the discoveries themselves. This could have been compiled very easily by indexing one of two key-words for each discovery. This would have allowed the browser to trace the development of different ideas or discoveries much more easily than it was for me to extract the information quoted above for basalt and erratics.

Although the author is a librarian, she makes no mention of M. J. Sarjeant’s magnificent five-volume, 4500 page bibliography of the history of geology. Her task would surely have been lightened if she had made use of it. Nevertheless her book makes a very useful commentary on Sarjeant’s bibliography.

REFERENCE

Sarjeant, M. J. 1980. Geologists and the History of Geology.

DEREK FLY”

Macmillan, 5v.

0 1990 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.