The founders of geology / by Sir Archibald Geikie.

  • Geikie, Archibald, 1835-1924.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The founders of geology / by Sir Archibald Geikie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    half of the sixteenth century, the method of practical research, as opposed to mere book-knowledge and theory, had been advocated even for the investigation of the rocky part of the earth. It was proclaimed, in no uncertain voice, by the learned and versatile Dane, Peter Severinus, who counselled his readers thus: “ Go, my sons, sell your lands, your houses, your garments and your jewelry; burn up your books. On the other hand, buy yourselves stout shoes, get away to the mountains, search the valleys, the deserts, the shores of the sea, and the deepest recesses of the earth ; mark well the distinctions between animals, the differences among plants, the various kinds of minerals, the properties and mode of origin of everything that exists. Be not ashamed to learn by heart the astronomy and terrestrial philosophy of the peasantry. Lastly, purchase coals, build furnaces, watch and experiment without weary- ing. In this way, and no other, will you arrive at a knowledge of things and of their properties.” The modern spirit of investigation in natural science could not be more clearly or cogently enforced than it was by this professor of literature and poetry, of meteorology and of medicine, in the year 1571. In spite of such teaching, it was long before what is now regarded as the domain of geology was definitely recognized as one that was not to be surrendered to mere fanciful speculation, but which offered an unsurpassed wealth of material for the most sedulous observation and the most scrupulous induction. The chief obstructors of progress in this department of human inquiry were the * Petrus Severinus, Idea Medednae Philosophicae, 1571, p. 73, cap. vii. De principiis corporum (cited by D’Aubuisson).