Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
but began to take a serious interest in geology and mineralogy. From
1754 until 1767 he farmed his land. On leaving Norfolk he bought a
plough and employed a ploughman and returned to Scotland where he
introduced novel agricultural methods to his district. He later wrote
a long treatise on these methods and a 1,045-page manuscript on his
agricultural philosophy, Elements of Agriculture, which interestingly
contained some opinions on biological evolution of organisms, but
this unfortunately remains unpublished. Although some distance
from Edinburgh, he maintained his contacts with the intellectual
circle, and it was to this group of friends that he turned when he
gave up farming for good and moved permanently into Edinburgh in
1768. There he joined the Philosophical Society and later established
the Oyster Club with Joseph Black (1728-1799), who discovered
carbon dioxide, and Adam Smith (1723-1790), the economist whose
will he executed. The club became a meeting place which saw infor-
mal weekly gatherings of like-minded people such as Sir James Hall
(1761-1832) of Dunglass, John Playfair (1748-1819) and others.
Playfair in his Biographical Account of the Late Dr James Hutton,
published shortly after Hutton's death, notes that Hutton ceased farm-
ing because once he had established good farming methods on his
properties, as 'the management of it [his farms] became more easy, it
grew less interesting'.
Hutton's interest in geology seems to have beeen sparked in
about 1752. What might have caused this? This is difficult to answer,
but he may well have been introduced to some geological works by
members of the Scottish Enlightenment. There is very clear evidence
from Hutton's own writings on the subject that he had read Hooke's
Dissertation on Earthquakes andMicrographia, although the Scottish
savant never acknowledged this as such. He may well have read Steno
and Burnet and other early treatises, including those by his fellow Scot
George Hoggart Toulmin (1754-1817) who argued in four volumes
published between 1780 and 1789 that the world was eternal. A num-
ber of historians of geology have rejected Hutton's reliance on
Toulmin's work. Nevertheless, it is now generally accepted that
