A Century of Science in America; With Special Reference to the American Journal of Science, 1818-1918

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill A CENTURY OP GEOLOGYSTEPS OF PROGRESS IN THE INTERPRETATION OF LAND FORMS By HERBERT E. GREGORY THE essence of physiography is the belief that land forms represent merely a stage in the orderly development of the earth's surface features; that the various dynamic agents perform their characteristic work throughout all geologic time. The formulation of principle and processes of earth sculpture was, therefore, impossible on the hypothesis of a ready-made earth whose features were substantially unchangeable, except when modified by catastrophic processes. In 1821, J. W. Wilson wrote in the Journal: Is it not the best theory of the earth, that the Creator, in the beginning, at least at the general deluge, formed it with all its present grand characteristic features?1 If so, a search for causes is futile, and the study of the work performed by streams and glaciers and wind is unprofitable. The belief in the Deluge as the one great geological event in the history of the earth has brought it about that the speculations of Aristotle, Herodotus, Strabo, and Ovid, and the illustrious Arab, Avicenna (980-1037), unchecked by appeal to facts but also unopposed by priesthood or popular prejudice, are nearer to the truth than the intolerant controversial writings of the intellectual leaders whose touchstone was orthodoxy. A few thinkers of the sixteenth century revolted against the interminable repetition of error, and Peter Severinus (1571) advised his students: Burn up your books . . . buy yourselves stout shoes, get away to the mountains, search the valleys, the deserts, the shores of the seas. ... In this way and noother will you arrive at a knowledge of things. But the thorough-going diluvialist who believed that a million species of animals could occupy a 450-foot Ark, ..