Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
contemporaries attributed the deposition of the gravel blanket and transport of enormous
boulders to great waves during the biblical flood.
In his 1819 inaugural address at Oxford, Buckland equated Cuvier's most recent cata-
strophic inundation with Noah's Flood.
The grand fact of an universal deluge at no very remote period is proved on grounds so decisive and incontrovert-
ible, that, had we never heard of such an event from Scripture, or any other, authority, Geology of itself must have
called in the assistance of some such catastrophe, to explain the phenomena of diluvian action which are univer-
sally presented to us, and which are unintelligible without recourse to a deluge exerting its ravages at a period not
more ancient than that announced in the Book of Genesis.
3
Although the remains of modern species buried in the surficial gravels pointed to a recent
calamity, Buckland did not believe that Noah's Flood formed fossil-bearing rocks. To find
evidence of the Flood you had to look in the overlying unconsolidated sediments and at the
lay of the land, the form of topography.
In Buckland's opinion, Europe's surficial gravel was too extensive to have been laid
down by rivers. He thought the Flood simultaneously deposited it and carved the modern
landscape from older rocks. Buckland coined the term diluvium to describe the surficial
deposits that mantled much of northern Europe and to distinguish them from alluvium, the
sand and gravel laid down by modern rivers. He remained disturbed, however, that no hu-
man fossils had been found in diluvium. Where were the bones of those the Flood was sent
to destroy?
Despite this troubling detail, Buckland stressed that geological facts were broadly con-
sistent with the biblical account because Noah's Flood ushered in only the most recent of a
long succession of worlds. Buckland's lecture, published as
Vindiciae Geologicae; or, the
Connexion of Geology with Religion Explained
, argued that geological facts “are consist-
ent with the accounts of the creation and deluge recorded in the mosaic writings… . The
evidences afforded by Geological phenomena may enable us to lay more securely the very
foundations of Natural Theology.”
4
The “Natural Theology” to which Buckland referred followed William Paley's popular
and influential 1802 topic of the same name. Paley argued that scientific revelations con-
tradicting biblical interpretations provided natural guidance for better interpreting scripture
