Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
into the Earth whereupon the dry land began to reappear. He realised
that in some parts of Europe the seas were retreating or regressing and
took this as evidence of the still dynamic process. Bogs and swamps
with their waterlogged sediments were additional evidence that this
event was rather recent. His ideas were quirky, but true to his religious
beliefs. Apart from showing the Ark he also mapped the position of the
Garden of Eden, which he represented in pictorial form with a clump
of four trees situated near the equator in the southern hemisphere.
Burnet's Telluris received both praise and criticism: the Bishop of
Hereford tartly remarked of Burnet that 'either his brain is crakt with
over-love of his own invention, or his heart is rotten with some evil
design.' It was widely read in Europe where a German translation was
produced in Hamburg in 1698, and a third edition in Latin was printed
in Amsterdam in 1699. Newton argued that the mountains were pro-
duced during the initial formation of the Earth, and also, as Stephen Jay
Gould has noted, came up with the ingenious suggestion that the early
Earth may have rotated on its axis much more slowly than it does at
present. This would have produced a much longer day, the inference of
which is that there was much more time than originally imagined in
the six days of the Creation, and so plenty of time to form the Earth, its
topographic features and its biologically diverse inhabitants. Others
noted that Burnet's smooth second-stage globe was at variance with
the Bible which read that the mountains and oceans were formed early
in the six days and certainly before the Flood.
Burnet attempted to deflect the criticism of his ideas in several
pamphlets published in 1690: in his Review of the Theory of the Earth,
and in two small pieces, of 86 and 42 pages, which considered the
matters raised by a Mr Erasmus Warren. In it he admitted that he did
not know the age of the world, but suggested that it was no more than
6,000 years old.
John Woodward's dissolving Earth
Burnet's thesis was read by John Woodward, Professor of Physic at
Gresham College, who felt it was lacking in original observations.
