Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Secure as ever in his faith in both nature and the Bible, Buckland maintained that the ques-
philosophical turnabout, Buckland shifted from using geology to shore up a literal inter-
pretation of the Bible to arguing that biblical interpretations could be tested through con-
sistency with geological observations.
Coming from a conservative man of the cloth, Buckland's Bridgewater treatise drew im-
mediate attacks from fellow clergy appalled by his recantation of geological support for the
biblical flood. Outraged traditionalists who insisted on interpreting the Bible literally railed
against this compelling dismissal of scriptural geology by a ranking clergyman steeped in
Anglican orthodoxy.
What led to Buckland's stunning reversal? To a great degree it was his former spellbound
student, Charles Lyell.
Born into a life of privilege the year James Hutton died, Lyell grew up exploring the
New Forest in Hampshire, where his father pursued botanical studies and encouraged his
son's interest in the family's extensive natural history library. Raised an Anglican, Lyell
read Bakewell's just-published geology textbook in 1816, the year he enrolled at Oxford to
study classical literature and law. Lyell was particularly struck by Bakewell's concept of a
world much older than generally supposed based on a literal reading of Genesis. Equally
intriguing to him, this unconventional idea came from the pen of someone who believed
geology revealed the Creator's grand design.
Lyell attended Buckland's Oxford lectures each spring from 1817 to 1819. He came to
accept that the biblical chronology referred to the time since the creation of people. Who
could know how much time had passed before then?
Buckland's enthusiastic endorsement ensured Lyell membership in the Geological So-
ciety of London once he graduated. Society members overwhelmingly rejected Hutton's
view of great cycles of gradual change driven by processes like those operating at present.
Most advocated Cuvier's view of earth history as a series of violent catastrophes. On a visit
to Paris the previous year, Lyell examined Cuvier's collection of fossils, describing them
as “glorious relics of a former world.”
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