Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Stratigraphical laws,
uniformitarianism and the
development of the geological
column
EMERGENCE OF PROFESSIONALISM IN GEOLOGY
By 1800 a new breed of geologist had emerged - the professional. This
term includes several groups of people drawn to the discipline: the
academics in universities; those who derived their livelihood through
working as geologists, mining engineers or surveyors; and those who
could support their geological work pretty well full-time through
their own means. Into the first of these three categories we can place
Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873) of Cambridge (Figure
8.1
) and the
Reverend William Buckland (1784-1856) of Oxford and later Dean of
Westminster; into the second, the army man Joseph Ellison Portlock
(1794-1864), and the Local Director of the Geological Survey in Ireland
Joseph Beete Jukes (1811-1869); and into the third, Roderick Impey
Murchison (1792-1871) (Figure
8.2
) and Charles Lyell (1795-1875)
(Figure
8.3
), to name but six. This emergence generated the momen-
tum that saw the adolescent discipline of geology mature into a fully
fledged science, complete with its own professional bodies and sur-
veys and a work force that advanced its understanding and knowledge
base. The Geological Society of London was established in 1807 and
was followed by other specialist geological societies, including that
in Dublin (1831). A chair of Geology was endowed in Cambridge
in 1728 by John Woodward, and similar chairs were established in
University College London in 1841, and in the University of Dublin
in 1843. Government geological surveys began the official mapping
of vast tracts of land in the hope of returning economically viable
materials. In the developing United States most of the states along
the eastern seaboard established surveys: North Carolina in 1824, its
