Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
challenged by the French chemist Lavoisier and Kirwan's fellow
countryman WilliamHiggins, who showed that there was an increase
in weight on the combustion of metals, and that oxygen was absorbed
in the process.
In later life Kirwan became a noted eccentric who detested flies
so much that he paid his servants for each corpse presented to him. He
disliked replying to correspondence and had his door knocker removed
at 7 o'clock each evening so as to prevent further visitors gaining
entry. He died in Dublin while engaged in the common practice for
the time of starving a cold. His funeral was a glittering occasion
attended by 900 city worthies. Today Kirwan lies in an unmarked
grave in the graveyard of St George's Church, Hill Street, Dublin,
which is now a tarmacadamed patch of waste ground frequented by
football-playing youths.
Some of Kirwan's objections to Hutton's ideas, which are some-
what difficult to glean from the contorted logic and language of his
papers, can be summarised briefly. He was particularly concerned
with the lack of evidence presented by Hutton, and said that the
theory was at variance with geological knowledge at that time. Jean-
Andr
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de Luc (1727-1817), who coined the term 'geology', similarly
criticised Hutton for not having carried out enough field work and for
having spent too much time indoors - grossly unfair, given the field
work Hutton had undertaken before 1785. Kirwan himself believed
that Earth history and structure could be explained with reference to
the Bible, and subscribed to the theory that all rocks were precipitated
from some primordial fluid, and that these were later eroded and
shaped by the waters of the Flood. De Luc's own theory of the Earth
treated the Flood as being the energy source for a time of global change.
Kirwan regarded Galway Bay as being the site of an ancient granite
body which was removed by these waters. He suggested that the
general and specific attractiveness of particles caused differentiation
in the early Earth. He believed that coal was a product of breakdown of
granite and basalt to yield bitumen which then aggregated into dis-
crete layers. Kirwan said that basalt rested on various rock types
