Ages in Chaos : James Hutton & the Discovery of Deep Time

260 Pages·2004·7.449 MB·English

by  Stephen Baxter

award- winning author of Evolution
ages in, chaos
"This book, then, is thertory of how a farmer's son
from Scotland learned to peer into the deepest
abysses of time. It is a drama of personality, land­
scape, and ideas, of an intellectual revolution that
shaped our world-and of a man whose vision,
rooted in antiquity yet tinged with modern philoso­
phies, was not only ahead of his own time but speaks
toournewcentury."-FROM THE FOREWORD
following Bishop h s <^ireiul bibli 1 o.
tions, was that the Earth was just six th • - • 1
years old. James Hutton, a gentleman farmer •, th
i passion for rocks, knew that could not be die
case. Looking at the formation of irregular strata
m the layers of the Earth, he boldly deduced that
a much longer span of time would be required for
the landscape he saw to have evolved. In the lusty
and turbulent world of Enlightenment Scotland,
tie set out to prove it.
tie could not have achieve^ this goal without the
help of his friends. Huttons entourage in
Edinburgh would turn out to be the leading
thinkers of the age, including Erasmus Darwin,
Adarn Smith, James Watt, David ;ume, and
Joseph Black. But Hutton had his enemies, too.
His geological theory wo Ud ignite profound re i
gious debate and was condemned as ‘a wild and
unnatural notion” that would lead to “skepticism,
and at last to downright infidelity and atheism.”
Ultimately, however, hra was o» e of the
most extraordinary and essential moments in sci­
entific history. Huttons disyovary of deep ti>- e
changed our view of humarfity solace in the uni­
verse forever.
Like Dava Sobel’s best* llmg kohgitude, Ages in
Chaos vividly captures a rapXcenc|ent moment in
the history of human accomplishment.
Ages in Chaos
Also from Tom Doherty Associates
The Light of Other Days (with Arthur C. Clarke)
Ages in Chaos
James Hutton and the
Discovery of Deep Time
Stephen Baxter
A Tom Doherty Associates Book
New York
AGES IN CHAOS: JAMES HUTTON AND THE DISCOVERY OF DEEP
TIME
Copyright © 2003 by Stephen Baxter
Originally published in 2003 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Great Britain,
under the title Revolutions in the Earth.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book,
or portions thereof, in any form.
Edited by David G. Hartwell
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 0-765-31238-7
EAN 978-0765-31238-9
First Forge Edition: November 2004
Printed in the United States of America
0987654321
To my mother

CONTENTS
Prologue i
part one: Deposition 9
1. 'They make a desert, and they call it peace' 11
2. 'The first day of the creation is deduced' 17
3. 'A mind formed for different pursuits' 24
4. 'Every man was a soldier' 32
5. 'The Earth's blood is the veins of its waters' 40
6. 'Upon this chaos rode the distressed ark' 47
7. 'The wandering infidelities of the heart' 57
8. 'A cursed country where one has to shape everything
out of a block' 65
9. 'The Work of Infinite Power and Wisdom' 74
part two: Consolidation 83
10. 'Assemblies of good fellows' 85
11. 'The power of heat is unlimited' 99
12. 'Lord pity the arse that's clagged to a head that
will hunt stones' 108
13. 'Britain derives nothing but loss from the dominion' 118
14. 'We have now got to the end of our reasoning' 130
15. 'The world was tired out with geological theories' 146
16. 'A wild and unnatural notion' 162
17. 'An abyss from which human reason recoils' 170
18. 'A passage from one condition of thought to another' 177
part three: Uplift 187
19. 'I could see the marks of his hammer' 189
20. 'It altered the tone of one's mind' 204
21. 'The bold outline traced with so masterly a hand' 214
Epilogue 222
Acknowledgements 232
Further Reading 233
Index 238
Frontispiece: Portrait of James Hutton by Sir Henry Raeburn,
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Siccar Point: Author's photograph