Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Science, and Satire in Augustan England (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1977) provides a good account of the social and scientific circles in which Woodward
lived and worked. A facsimile edition of his Brief instructions for making observa-
tions in all parts of the World (1696) was published by the Society for the
Bibliography of Natural History (now the Society for the History of Natural
History) in 1973 and complemented with an introduction by Victor Eyles. John
Woodward's museum complete with his original cabinets and specimens is
described by David Price in the Journal of the History of Collections 1, part 1
(1989), 79-95. The provenance of some of the minerals acquired by Woodward
from the Carpathians is discussed by Mikl´ sK´ zm´ r in the same journal, vol. 10,
part 2 (1998), 159-168. Woodward's ideas on the nature of fossils are discussed
by Martin Rudwick in The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of
Palaeontology, 2nd edition (University of Chicago Press, 1985).
Chapter 4. Falling stones, salty oceans, and evaporating waters: early
empirical measurements of the age of the Earth
The authoritative source on Edward Lhwyd is that by R. T. Gunther, Early Science
in Oxford. Life and Letters of Edward Lhuyd (Oxford: privately published by the
author, 1945). In it Gunther reproduces the fine biographical memoir by Richard
Ellis that first appeared in the Transactions of the Cymmrodorion Society for 1907.
Equally the paper by Brynley F. Roberts, 'In search of Edward Lhwyd', Archives of
Natural History 16, part 1 (1989), 49-57, is useful. Lhwyd's masterful illustrated
catalogue of fossils Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia and the difficulties he
experienced getting it published are discussed in some detail by Marcus Hellyer in
Archives of Natural History 23, part 2 (1996), 43-60, while the various issues of this
work are described by M. E. Jahn in the Journal of the Society for the History of
Natural History 6 (1972), 86-97. Details of Lhwyd's Irish botanical observations are
given by M. E. Mitchell, 'Irish botany in the seventeenth century', Proceedings of
the Royal Irish Academy 75B (1975), 275-284. Lhwyd's role in the description of
early dinosaur bones in Britain is recounted by Justin B. Delair and William A. S.
Sarjeant, 'The earliest discoveries of dinosaur bones: the records re-examined',
Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 113, part 3 (2002), 185-197. They also
reproduce a portrait of Lhwyd from a document in Merton College, Oxford; a similar
but clearer image reproduced here is given in Robert M. Owens, 'Trilobites in
Wales', National Museum of Wales, Geological Series 7 (1984), 1-22. Discussion
of Brookes' name Scrotum humanum is contained in L. B. Halstead and W. A. S.
Sarjeant, 'Scrotum humanum Brookes-the earliest name for a dinosaur?', Modern
Geology 18 (1993), 221-224. For additional discussion of Lhwyd's thoughts on
