A common historical myth is that Victorian geology was torn between religious traditionalists and secular geologists. In fact long before the Victorian period all accredited geologists (with very few exceptions) agreed that the earth was millions of years old, that strata were layers from different times and the Book of Genesis was either not incompatible with the findings of modern geology or irrelevant to them. For many Victorians geology was the hottest science going. It was new (the Geological Society of London was founded in 1807), its sometime controversial findings were well-attested and respected, and it had a wide amateur following. Geology made obvious the vast age of the earth and the apparent succession of living forms that had inhabited it. Much of Victorian science centred on stratigraphy, mineralogy and palaeontology. The Geological Survey of Great Britain (1835; offsite) was the largest professional scientific organization maintained by Victorian governments.
- William Buckland
- Georges Cuvier
- Adam Sedwick (no material yet)
- Charles Lyell
- Richard Owen
- Robert Chambers
- James David Forbes (theory of glacial ice)
- Hutton
- Hugh Miller (no material yet)
- Alfred Russel Wallace
- John Tyndall
- Louis Aggasiz
- Science and religion
Online resources
- GeoClio
- Creation stories from the Bible
- Geological Strata at Crystal Palace Park
- Cuvier, Discourse on the Revolutionary Upheavals on the Surface of the Earth. 1825 edn. (available in French & English)
- Reviews of the first English translation of Cuvier's essay in The British Review and London Critical Journal, 1813 and in The Edinburgh Review. 1813-1814
- Lyell. Principles of Geology (chapters III & IV only)
- Lyell. The Student's Elements of Geology (ca.1870) (Gutenberg text)
- Lyell. Travels in North America, Canada, and Nova Scotia: With Geological Observations London, 1855 (PDF format).
- Lyell. Scientific Papers: The Progress of Geology; and Uniformity of Change.
Further reading
Peter J. Bowler. The Norton History of the Environmental Sciences. Norton, 1993.
C.C. Gillispie. Genesis and geology: a study in the relations of scientific thought, natural theology, and social opinion in Great Britain, 1790-1850, Cambridge, 1951.
Gabriel Gohau. A History of Geology. Rutgers, 1990.
Rachel Laudan. From Mineralogy to Geology: The Foundations of a Science, 1650-1830. 1987.
Martin Rudwick. Georges Cuvier, Fossil Bones, and Geological Catastrophes. 1997.
Martin Rudwick. The Great Devonian Controversy. 1985.
Martin Rudwick. The Meaning of Fossils. 1972.
Martin Rudwick. Scenes from Deep Time. 1992.
Nicolaas Rupke. Great chain of history: William Buckland and the English school of geology (1814-1849), Oxford, 1983.
James Secord. 'Introduction', to Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology. Penguin Classics, 1997.
James Secord. Controversy in Victorian Geology: The Cambrian-Silurian Dispute. Princeton, 1986.
Torrens, H. S. The practice of British geology, 1750-1850. 2002.
Zittel, Karl A., von. Geschichte der Geologie und Paläontologie bis Ende des 19. Jahrhundert, 1899.
Last modified 18 January 2012