Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Woodward made his mark in natural history after he chanced upon shellfish entombed in
solid rock in a Gloucestershire field. How sea creatures came to be encased in rock mys-
tified him. Vowing to pursue an answer to the remotest parts of the kingdom, Woodward
visited quarries and mines across Britain, noting anything memorable he came across and
amassing a tremendous fossil collection. He sent off letters to natural philosophers inquir-
ing about whether strata around the world contained fossils right up to the highest peaks.
The same year he was appointed professor of medicine, he was elected to the Royal Society
on the strength of his growing reputation as a fossil expert. So far, Woodward was building
an impressive career.
The following year, in 1695, he published his essay
,
arguing that the Flood dissolved
Earth's primitive crust, leaving no trace of the original world. Adopting Steno's principles,
Woodward's ideas and the evidence he offered to back them up came from studying Bri-
tain's rocks and fossils. Convinced that fossils were the remains of organisms that perished
in the Flood, he was more concerned with what the event accomplished than in how it came
about.
Woodward was one of many natural historians whose homeland's landforms and geolo-
gical features figured prominently in their thinking. It's no chance happening that English
savants greatly influenced the explanation of fossil life. Their country, and much of its well-
exposed coastline, is rich with fossils. I have no doubt that my own geological perspective
on big floods would be quite different had I only stayed within several hundred miles of
where I grew up in northern California and had never seen wonders like the Tsangpo Gorge
and the Grand Canyon.
A good scientist also draws on the experience and observations of others, and despite
his famous arrogance, Woodward borrowed Steno's idea that all strata were deposited as
great horizontal sheets. He, too, argued that one could read the history of deformation from
the orientation of formerly flat-lying rock. Like Steno, Woodward thought that topography
formed during the same event that disrupted the rocks. Convinced that the only true philo-
sophy was based on careful observation, he believed that his account of earth history con-
firmed that a great flood reshaped the world.
In Woodward's day, many natural philosophers accepted the idea that a mighty flood
burst forth from a subterranean abyss. In keeping with then conventional wisdom, Wood-
