Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
the records of the fossil kingdom" (123). Playfair clearly cares about old for
old's sake, and he notes with pleasure that continents wasted to produce
vertical strata below the unconformity represent a world "third in
succession" (123) back from our present earth.
Continuing the historical sequence, Playfair discusses vertical strata below
the unconformity and marvels at the vicissitudes of history. These rocks were
broken and raised, lowered to receive sediments above the unconformity,
then raised onto continents a second time—"so that they have twice visited
the superior and twice the inferior regions" (123). They also represent the
second world of this historical sequence. Playfair then moves on to the
horizontal strata above the unconformity—the third world—and brings his
narrative to the latest event of erosion, "the shaping of all the present
inequalities of the surface" (124). Whereas Hutton disdained to record
sequential events, Playfair orders all these stages into history. He concludes:
"These phenomena, then, are all so many marks of the lapse of time, among
which the principles of geology enable us to distinguish a certain order, so
that we may know some of them to be more, and others to be less
distant" (124-125).
Playfair's historical descriptions seem so simple, so innocent, so obvious.
How could they mark a major departure? Yet you may read a thousand pages
of Hutton's
Theory
and never find a phrase written in this mode. In short,
Playfair won greater acceptability for Hutton by portraying his field evidence
in the traditional, historical style that Hutton himself had consistently
shunned. Even Hutton's Boswell could not follow his friend's rigorously
ahistorical tastes, a predilection so contrary to our ordinary interest in the
distinctive arrangement of things in time.
A Word in Conclusion and Prospect
Hutton "discovered" deep time by imposing his rigid view of time's cycle
upon a complex earth. He did so, in part, to resolve a paradox in final cause—
an issue that is no longer part of science. But his
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