Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
but nevertheless interesting biography is Edward B. Bailey's Charles Lyell (London:
Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1962). For details of Lyell's travels in North America see
Leonard Wilson, Lyell in America: Transatlantic Geology, 1841-1853 (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), and two papers by Robert H. Dott Jr,
'Charles Lyell in America - his lectures, field work, and mutual influences,
1841-1853', Earth Sciences History 15, part 2 (1996), 101-140, and 'Charles
Lyell's debt to North America: his lectures and travels from 1841 to 1853', in
Blundell and Scott Lyell: The Past is the Key to the Future (1998).
Christopher McGowan is a leading scholar of Mesozoic marine reptiles, and in
his The Dragon Seekers (Cambridge MA: Perseus Publishing, 2001) tells the compel-
ling story of their discovery in England by Mary Anning and others. Mary Anning was
until recently a somewhat obscure character but she has been drawn out of the
recesses of time by Hugh Torrens in his paper 'Mary Anning (1799-1847) of Lyme;
''The greatest Fossilist the World ever knew''', British Journal of the History of
Science 28 (1995), 257-284. She is also the subject of a wonderful children's book
by Catherine Brighton, The Fossil Girl (London: Francis Lincoln, 1999).
The debate on the attributon of Scottish sandstones at Elgin is given in John
A. Deimer, 'Old or New Red Sandstone? Evolution of a nineteenth century strati-
graphic debate, northern Scotland', Earth SciencesHistory 15, part 2 (1996), 151-166.
The arguments between Geikie and Hicks are recounted by Paul Pearson and Chris
Nicholas in 'Defining the base of the Cambrian: the Hicks-Geikie confrontation of
April 1883', Earth Sciences History 11, part 2 (1992), 70-80, and also in David R.
Oldroyd, 'The Archean controversy in Britain: Part 1 - The rocks of St. David's',
Annals of Science 48 (1991), 407-452.
W. B. N. Berry's Growth of a Prehistoric Time Scale: Based on Organic
Evolution (Palo Alto & Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1987) contains
the best overview of the development of the geological column from a palaeontolo-
gical perspective. A great deal has been written about the controversies relating to
the delineation of some of the geological Periods. For lively and exhaustive accounts
of the debates surrounding the Cambrian and Silurian see James Secord,
Controversy in Victorian Geology: the Cambrian-Silurian Dispute (Princeton
University Press, 1986), and for the Devonian arguments see Martin Rudwick,
The Great Devonian Controversy (University of Chicago Press, 1985), which also
briefly touches on Murchison's travels in Russia (pp. 376-379). The naming of the
Pennsylvanian is discussed by William R. Brice, 'Henry Shaler Williams (1847-1918)
and the Pennsylvanian Period', Northeastern Geology and Environmental Sciences
22, part 4 (2000), 286-293.
Michael Collie and John Diemer have recently produced an edited account
of Murchison's time spent in Russia: Murchison's Wanderings in Russia: his
