Controversy in Victorian Geology: The Cambrian-Silurian Dispute

by James A. Secord

Book Overview

Secord gives a dazzlingly detailed account of this scientific trench warfare and its social consequences. One ends up with a marvellous feeling for the major taxonomic enterprises in Darwin's younger day: mapping, ordering, conquering 'taming the chaos" of the strata. All of these of course had social and imperial ramifications; and Secord mentions geology's moral appeal (in supporting a divinely-stratified Creation) to a beleaguered elite intent...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691084173
• ISBN13: 9780691084176
• Release Date: October 1986
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 301 Pages
• Weight: 1.69 lbs.