Young-Earth Creationists in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain? Towards a Reassessment of ‘Scriptural Geology’

Cooter Roger Pumfrey Stephen , “Separate spheres and public places: Reflections on the history of science popularization and science in popular culture”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 237–67, p. 253.

The classic defence of ‘non-partisan’ history of science and religion is Brooke John Hedley Cantor Geoffrey , Reconstructing nature: The engagement of science and religion (Edinburgh, 1998).

Cooter Pumfrey , “Separate spheres” (ref. 1), 253.

Brooke Cantor , Reconstructing nature (ref. 2), 57–62.

This contrasts with the relatively well documented field of early-modern literalist engagements with science. For an excellent recent example bordering on the topic under discussion here, see Browne Janet , “Noah's flood, the ark, and the shaping of early modern natural history”, in Lindberg David C. Numbers Ronald L. (eds), When science & Christianity meet (Chicago, 2003), 111–38.

Gillispie Charles Coulston , Genesis and geology: A study in the relations of scientific thought, natural theology, and social opinion in Great Britain, 1790–1850 (Cambridge, MA, 1951); Millhauser Milton , “The scriptural geologists: An episode in the history of opinion”, Osiris, n.s., xi (1954), 1954–86; Haber Francis C. , The age of the world: Moses to Darwin (Baltimore, 1959), 204–12. Millhauser's article remains useful as an overview.

Examples of such reassessments include Brooke Cantor , Reconstructing nature (ref. 2); Livingstone David (eds), Evangelicals and science in historical perspective (New York, 1999); Astore William J. , Observing God: Thomas Dick, evangelicalism, and popular science in Victorian Britain and America (Aldershot, 2001); Lindberg Numbers , When science & Christianity meet (ref. 5); and Fyfe Aileen , Science and salvation: Evangelical popular science publishing in Victorian Britain (Chicago, 2004).

The classic statement of this position is Brooke John Hedley , Science and religion: Some historical perspectives (Cambridge, 1991).

See Cadbury Deborah , The dinosaur hunters: A true story of scientific rivalry and the discovery of the prehistoric world (London, 2000); and Winchester Simon , The map that changed the world: A tale of rocks, ruin and redemption (London, 2001).

Dean Dennis R. , Gideon Mantell and the discovery of dinosaurs (Cambridge, 1999), 150.

For example, Freeman Michael , Victorians and the prehistoric: Tracks to a lost world (New Haven, 2004), 85–88, 186–8.

Gillispie , Genesis and geology (ref. 6), 152.

Orange A. D. , Philosophers and provincials: The Yorkshire Philosophical Society from 1822 to 1844 (York, 1973), 59–62; Orange A. D. , “The idols of the theatre: The British Association and its early critics”, Annals of science, xxxii (1975), 1975–94; Yule John David , “The impact of science on British religious thought in the second quarter of the nineteenth century”, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1976, 99–129, 321–34; Morrell Jack Thackray Arnold , Gentlemen of science: Early years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1981), 234–44; Rupke Nicolaas A. , The great chain of history: William Buckland and the English school of geology (1814–1849) (Oxford, 1983), 42–50, 209–18; Rudwick Martin J. S. , The great Devonian controversy: The shaping of scientific knowledge among gentlemanly specialists (Chicago, 1985), 43; Rudwick Martin J. S. , “The shape and meaning of earth history”, in Lindberg David C. Numbers Ronald L. (eds), God and nature: Historical essays on the encounter between Christianity and science (Berkeley, 1986), 296–321, pp. 312–13; Moore James R. , “Geologists and interpreters of Genesis in the nineteenth century”, ibid., 322–50, pp. 336–40; Klaver J. M. I. , Geology and religious sentiment: The effect of geological discoveries on English society and literature between 1829 and 1859 (Leiden, 1997), 106–14; Stiling Rodney L. , “Scriptural geology in America”, in Livingstone (eds), Evangelicals and science (ref. 7), 177–92; and Morrell Jack , John Phillips and the business of Victorian science (Aldershot, 2005), 149–52.

See, for example, the brief assertion of the “marginality of the scriptural geologists” in Aileen Fyfe's otherwise exemplary study of Victorian British evangelical science popularization, in which these literalists are implicitly but misleadingly lumped together as premillenarians and as “anti-science” ( Fyfe , Science and salvation (ref. 7), 8, 23–24).

For example, Roberts Michael , “Geology and Genesis unearthed”, Churchman, cxii (1998), 225–55; Osborne Roger , The floating egg: Episodes in the making of geology (London, 1998), 44–49, 178–95; and Knell Simon J. , The culture of English geology, 1815–1851: A science revealed through its collecting (Aldershot, 2000).

Lynch John M. , (ed.), Creationism and scriptural geology, 1817–1857 (7 vols, Bristol, 2002).

Mortenson Terry , The great turning point: The church's catastrophic mistake on geology — Before Darwin (Green Forest, 2004). The literalists examined are Granville Penn, George Bugg, George Fairholme, Andrew Ure, John Murray, George Young, and William Rhind.

On the history of this movement see Numbers Ronald L. , The creationists: From scientific creationism to intelligent design, 2nd edn (Cambridge, MA, 2006), and Moore James , “The creationist cosmos of Protestant fundamentalism”, in Marty Martin E. Appleby R. Scott , (eds), Fundamentalisms and society: Reclaiming the sciences, the family, and education (Chicago, 1993), 42–72.

Mortenson , The great turning point (ref. 17), back cover and titlepage.

For example, Lynch John M. , “Introduction”, in Lynch (ed.), Creationism and scriptural geology (ref. 16), i, pp. ix–xxiv, see p. x; and Lynch John M. , “‘Scriptural geology’, Vestiges of the natural history of Creation and contested authority in nineteenth-century British science”, in Clifford David (eds), Repositioning Victorian sciences: Shifting centres in nineteenth-century scientific thinking (London, 2006), 131–41, p. 132.

Lynch , “‘Scriptural geology’” (ref. 20), p. x.

Protestants took a new interest in interpreting Genesis 1 literally, but they were far from inventing this practice as has been suggested by Bowler Peter Morus Iwan Rhys , Making modern science: A historical survey (Chicago, 2005), 105–6.

On sacred chronology see Grafton Anthony , Defenders of the text: The traditions of scholarship in an age of science, 1450–1800 (Cambridge, MA, 1991), 104–44; and McCalla Arthur H. , The creationist debate: The encounter between the Bible and the historical mind (London, 2006), 28–54. On its links with earth history see Rupke , The great chain of history (ref. 13), 52–57; Rudwick , “The shape and meaning of earth history” (ref. 13); and Fuller J. G. C. M. , “Before the hills in order stood: The beginning of the geology of time in England”, in Lewis C. L. E. Knell S. J. (eds), The age of the earth: From 4004 BC to AD 2002 (London, 2001), 15–23.

Frei Hans W. , The eclipse of biblical narrative: A study in eighteenth and nineteenth century hermeneutics (New Haven, 1974); and Moore , “Geologists” (ref. 13), 332–5.

See Porter Roy , The making of geology: Earth science in Britain 1660–1815 (Cambridge, 1977).

Roberts Michael , “Geology and Genesis unearthed” (ref. 15), 254; and Lynch , “Introduction” (ref. 20), x.

On the Hunter case, see Rudwick Martin J. S. , Bursting the limits of time: The reconstruction of geohistory in the age of revolution (Chicago, 2005), 126–7. On the teaching of the date 4004 b.c. see Fuller J. G. C. M. , “A date to remember: 4004 BC”, Earth sciences history, xxiv (2005), 2005–14 (Fuller notes that the date 4004 b.c. was not calculated by James Ussher); and Astore , Observing God (ref. 7), 158. See also Lyell Katherine M. , Life, letters and journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. (2 vols, London, 1881), ii, 168.

On the response to Cain see Steffan Truman Guy , Lord Byron's Cain (Austin, 1968), and O'Connor Ralph , “Byron's afterlife and the emancipation of geology”, in Beatty Bernard Robinson Charles (eds), Liberty and poetic licence: New essays on Byron (Liverpool, 2008 forthcoming). For examples of conservative opposition to geology in newspaper articles of the 1830s and 1840s see Topham Jonathan R. , “Beyond the ‘common context’: The production and reading of the Bridgewater Treatises”, Isis, lxxxix (1998), 1998–62, pp. 257–8; and Secord James A. , Victorian sensation: The extraordinary publication, reception, and secret authorship of Vestiges of the natural history of Creation (Chicago, 2000), 339.

For example Winchester , The map that changed the world (ref. 9), 16–17 (Cadbury's The dinosaur hunters (ref. 9), is a rare exception to this tendency).

Useful (but diametrically opposed) summaries of the stance taken towards the date of Creation in a small selection of nineteenth-century theological writings are given in Roberts Michael , “Geology and Genesis unearthed” (ref. 15), and Mortenson , The great turning point (ref. 17), 40–47, but in both cases it is unclear on what basis the selection has been made.

Winter Alison , “The construction of orthodoxies and heterodoxies in the early Victorian life sciences”, in Lightman Bernard (ed.), Victorian science in context (Chicago, 1997), 24–50, pp. 25–26.

Roberts Michael , “Geology and Genesis unearthed” (ref. 15), 254.

McCalla , The creationist debate (ref. 23), 65.

This story is told in O'Connor Ralph , The earth on show: Fossils and the poetics of popular science, 1802–1856 (Chicago, 2007 forthcoming). On the development of old-earth geology within this intellectual community see Rudwick , Bursting the limits of time (ref. 27), and Rudwick Martin J. S. , Worlds before Adam: The reconstruction of geohistory in the age of reform (Chicago, 2008 forthcoming).

Miller Hugh , The testimony of the rocks; or, Geology in its bearings on the two theologies, natural and revealed (Edinburgh, 1857), 383–422.

Lynch , “Introduction” (ref. 20), pp. xvii, xiv–xv.

As one of Miller's opponents put it, “There are other sciences besides geology. There is, for instance, the science of Theology, in its twofold aspect of Natural and Revealed”: Gillespie William , The theology of geologists, as exemplified in the cases of the late Hugh Miller, and others (Edinburgh, 1859), 37.

Lightman Bernard , (ed.), The dictionary of nineteenth-century British scientists (4 vols, Bristol, 2004). Figures included are not restricted to those who called themselves, or were called at the time, “scientists”. Compare William Sarjeant's enormously detailed bibliography Geologists and the history of geology: An international bibliography from the origins to 1978 (5 vols, London, 1980), which — Along with its two supplementary issues — Includes no nineteenth-century literalist earth-historians apart from Ure (as is noted by Brooke and Cantor, Reconstructing nature (ref. 2), p. 71, n. 32).

On some aspects of these conflicts, see Yeo Richard , Defining science: William Whewell, natural knowledge, and public debate in early Victorian Britain (Cambridge, 1993). On their methodological implications for historians, see Cooter Pumfrey , “Separate spheres” (ref. 1), 253–5.

Cooter Roger , The cultural meaning of popular science: Phrenology and the organization of consent in nineteenth-century Britain (Cambridge, 1984); Oppenheim Janet , The other world: Spiritualism and psychical research in England, 1850–1914 (Cambridge, 1985); and Winter Alison , Mesmerized: Powers of mind in Victorian Britain (Chicago, 1998).

On this ideological position see Moore , “The creationist cosmos” (ref. 18).

Warwick Alex , “Margins and centres”, in Clifford (eds), Repositioning Victorian sciences (ref. 20), 1–13, p. 4.

Lynch , “‘Scriptural Geology’” (ref. 20), 134.

Lynch , “‘Scriptural Geology’” (ref. 20), 133.

These include Miller Hugh Lyell Charles Sedgwick Adam Chambers Robert (e.g. Lynch, “‘Scriptural Geology’” (ref. 20), 133, 134, 134–5).

Moore , “Geologists” (ref. 13), 340.

Cantor Geoffrey , Quakers, Jews, and science: Religious responses to modernity and the sciences in Britain, 1650–1900 (Oxford, 2005), 257, 304–6.

Cantor , Quakers, Jews, and science (ref. 47), 303.

Numbers , The creationists (ref. 18); and Moore , “The creationist cosmos” (ref. 18).

Secord Anne , “Science in the pub: Artisan botanists in early nineteenth-century Lancashire”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 269–315; Winter , Mesmerized (ref. 40); and Cantor , Quakers, Jews, and science (ref. 47).

On the significance of the attribution of Genesis to Moses see Yule , “The impact of science” (ref. 13), 371–3.

[ Bugg George ], Scriptural geology; or, Geological phenomena consistent only with the literal interpretation of the sacred scriptures (2 vols, London, 1826–27); and Penn Granville , A comparative estimate of the mineral and Mosaical geologies (2 vols, London, 1822).

Higgins W. M. , The Mosaical and mineral geologies, illustrated and compared (London, 1832). For a misreading of Higgins's cosmology, see Topham Jonathan R. , “Science and popular education in the 1830s: The role of the Bridgewater Treatises”, The British journal for the history of science, xxv (1992), 1992–430, p. 428. Other self-styled “scriptural geologists” of an old-earth persuasion include “A scriptural geologist”, author of “The bishop of Calcutta, the Rev. H. Melvill, and Dr. Chalmers, on scriptural geology”, Christian observer, xxxix (1839), 1839–31; and “Fides”, “Scriptural geology”, Christian observer, xxxix (1839), 1839–5.

My translations from the Hebrew are drawn from Brown Francis Driver S. R. Briggs Charles A. , (eds), A Hebrew and English lexicon of the Old Testament, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1951). Most adherents of the so-called gap theory usually assumed that the sun had shone on the earth during the intervening period, despite the (separate) appearance of light and the sun on days 1 and 4 of the subsequent Creation-narrative.

For a usefully systematic account of some of these schemes, see Yule , “The impact of science” (ref. 13), 317–65 (especially the table on p. 332).

Haber , The age of the world (ref. 6), 204; Hilton Boyd , The age of atonement: The influence of evangelicalism on social and economic thought, 1785–1865 (Oxford, 1988), 150; and Freeman , Victorians and the prehistoric (ref. 11), 85. General surveys of science and religion still often treat writers like Buckland as if they were literalists: See Olson Richard G. , Science and religion, 1450–1900: From Copernicus to Darwin (Baltimore, 2004), 174.

See Stiling , “Scriptural geology in America” (ref. 13), 187–8. One of the most important divergences is that the best-known organization promoting modern young-earth creationism, the Institute for Creation Research, ostensibly distances its scientific teaching from biblical exegesis (Numbers, The creationists (ref. 18); Moore , “The creationist cosmos” (ref. 18)), whereas nineteenth-century literalists, like many of their opponents, strove to keep science and exegesis intimately and explicitly connected.

Hilton , The age of atonement (ref. 56), 150; and Lynch , Creationism and scriptural geology (ref. 16).

Dean Dennis R. , “‘Through science to despair’: Geology and the Victorians”, in Paradis James G. Postlewait Thomas (eds), Victorian science and Victorian values: Literary perspectives (New York, 1981), 111–36, p. 120; and Merrill Lynn L. , The romance of Victorian natural history (Oxford, 1989), 237.

This has been emphasized by Yule , “The impact of science” (ref. 13), 328–9; Brooke John Hedley , “The history of science and religion: Some evangelical dimensions”, in Livingstone (eds), Evangelicals and science (ref. 7), 17–40; and Roberts Michael , “Geology and Genesis unearthed” (ref. 15).

Moore , “Geologists” (ref. 13), 336. A similar opposition is reflected in Yule, “The impact of science” (ref. 13), 324.

For example, Sumner John Bird , A treatise on the records of the Creation, and on the moral attributes of the Creator (2 vols, London, 1816), i, 282–5; “Eretzsepher”, Remarks on Dr. Buckland's view of the Mosaic Creation, as the last fitting up of the earth (London, 1837); Smith John Pye , On the relation between the holy scriptures and some parts of geological science (London, 1839); Crofton Denis , Genesis and geology; or, An investigation into the reconciliation of the modern doctrines of geology, with the declarations of Scripture (London, 1852); and Chaffer Richard , The Creation; or The agreement of Scripture and geological science: A sermon preached at the church of St. Alphege, Greenwich (Greenwich, 1856).

For example, Young George Bird John , A geological survey of the Yorkshire coast (Whitby, 1822); and [ Rennie James ], Conversations on geology (London, 1828). Philip Henry Gosse's Omphalos: An attempt to untie the geological knot (London, 1857) presents an interesting example: Its argument for the plausibility of a young earth makes no use of biblical exegesis apart from the last sentence.

For a different perspective on this problematic, see Moore , “The creationist cosmos” (ref. 18), 54–55.

For an insightful exploration of some of the methodological difficulties involved in establishing the ‘literal sense’ of a biblical passage, see Watson Francis , Text and truth: Redefining biblical theology (Edinburgh, 1997), 107–24.

For a rare exception see Greene Mott T. , “Genesis and geology revisited: The order of nature and the nature of order in nineteenth-century Britain”, in Lindberg Numbers (eds), When science and Christianity meet (ref. 7), 139–59, p. 140. Greene prefers the term “biblical realist”, which is itself open to further confusion because of its very different and much better-known meaning in late twentieth-century theological debate.

Anon., “British Association”, Literary Gazette, 1836, 634–5, p. 634. For similar old-earth assertions of literalism see “A scriptural geologist”, “The bishop of Calcutta” (ref. 53), 27 n.; Christmas Henry , Echoes of the universe: From the world of matter and the world of spirit (London, 1850), 105; and Hitchcock Edward , The religion of geology and its connected sciences (Glasgow, 1851), 63. Compare, however, Buckland's own very different use of the word ‘literal’ in his Geology and mineralogy considered with reference to natural theology (2 vols, London, 1836), i, 14.

For present-day analogues compare Village Andrew , “Factors shaping biblical literalism: A study among Anglican laity”, Journal of beliefs & values, xxvi (2005), 29–38.

For example, Rupke , Great chain of history (ref. 13), 42; and Cadbury , The dinosaur hunters (ref. 9), 195.

This variety has been noted in passing by Rupke (The great chain of history (ref. 13), 48) and Roberts Michael (“Geology and Genesis” (ref. 15), 247).

Bugg , Scriptural geology (ref. 52), i, 363. Unless otherwise noted, italics in quotations are original.

[ Bugg ], Scriptural geology (ref. 52), ii, 355–6.

Millhauser , “The scriptural geologists” (ref. 6), 71; Haber , The age of the world (ref. 6), 212; and Allen David Elliston , The naturalist in Britain: A social history (London, 1976), 70.

Rupke has suggested in The great chain of history (ref. 13) that literalist earth-history “began to form a coherent body of literature … specifically in opposition to Buckland's Reliquiae Diluvianae” (p. 42), but while Buckland's work clearly provided an important and often negative stimulus for literalist writers, Rupke's suggestion seems to me to flatten out Buckland's significance in geological debate in the 1820s, to gloss over the role played by Cuvier's Theory of the earth, and to overstate the literalists' coherence as a movement (see Section 3 of this article). Several literalists made positive rather than negative use of Buckland's cave theories and natural-theological position (e.g. Rennie, Turner, Ure).

See O'Connor , The earth on show (ref. 34).

Moore , “Geologists” (ref. 13), 337; and Rudwick , “The shape and meaning of earth history” (ref. 13), 312.

Brown J. Mellor , Reflections on geology: Suggested by the perusal of Dr Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise (Edinburgh, 1838), 50.

Sedgwick Adam , A discourse on the studies of the University (Cambridge, 1833), 9.

Brown , Reflections on geology (ref. 77), 3.

Brown , Reflections on geology (ref. 77), 38.

See the works cited in ref. 13. It is worth pointing out, however, that this opposition was not motivated purely by theological conservatism. Initial opposition to Buckland's hyena-den theories formed part of a larger tussle between provincial investigators and metropolitan gentlemen over the intellectual (and sometimes physical) ownership of local fossils. On the wider context see Knell , The culture of English geology (ref. 15).

Cole Henry , Popular geology subversive of divine revelation! A letter to the Rev. Adam Sedgwick (London, 1834); Penn , A comparative estimate (ref. 52); and Fairholme George , A general view of the geology of Scripture (London, 1834).

Lyell Katherine , Life, letters and journals (ref. 27), i, 238.

Morrell Jack Thackray Arnold , (eds), Gentlemen of science: Early correspondence of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (London, 1984), 168. This passage is also quoted in Rupke, The great chain of history (ref. 13), 49.

Lyell Charles , “Scrope's Geology of central France”, Quarterly review, xxxvi (1827), 437–83, p. 482.

Penn Granville , A comparative estimate of the mineral and Mosaical geologies, 2nd edn (2 vols, London, 1825), i, pp. xxxvii and xxxvi.

Penn , A comparative estimate (ref. 86), i, pp. xxxvi–xxxvii, n.

Gould Stephen Jay , “The invisible woman”, in Gates Barbara T. Shteir Ann B. (eds), Natural eloquence: Women reinscribe science (Madison, 1997), 27–39, p. 38. This essay is also printed in Gould Stephen Jay , Dinosaur in a haystack (London, 1997), 187–201.

Roberts Mary , The progress of Creation considered, with reference to the present condition of the earth (London, 1837), 243.

Millhauser , “The scriptural geologists” (ref. 6), 65.

The classic account of this split is Turner Frank M. , “The Victorian conflict between science and religion: A professional dimension”, Isis, lxix (1978), 356–76. Reassessments include Livingstone David N. , “Re-placing Darwin and Christianity”, in Lindberg Numbers (eds), When science & Christianity meet (ref. 5), 183–202; and White Paul , “Ministers of culture: Arnold, Huxley and liberal Anglican reform of learning”, History of science, xliii (2005), 2005–38.

For further biographical information on Ure, see (besides the works cited in the caption to Table 1) Copeman W. S. C. , “Andrew Ure, M.D., F.R.S. (1778–1857)”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, xliv (1951), 655–62. On Mary Roberts, see also Lindsay Gillian , “Mary Roberts: A neglected naturalist', Antiquarian book monthly, xxiii (1996), 1996–22; Gould , “The invisible woman” (ref. 88); and Opitz Donald L. , “Introduction”, in Roberts Mary , The conchologist's companion, ed. by Lightman Bernard (facsimile reprint of 1st edn, Bristol, 2004), pp. v–x.

Moore , “Geologists” (ref. 13), 337.

Knell , The culture of English geology (ref. 15).

For this information see the works cited in the caption to Table 1.

Rennie James , Insect architecture (London, 1830).

Letter from Buckland to Vernon Harcourt, 20 November 1833, printed in Morrell Thackray (eds), Gentlemen of science: Early correspondence (ref. 84), 235.

This does not necessarily mean that the people concerned did not continue to practise geology, although several did not; the question is whether or not they published or lectured on this science.

See, for instance, Bromwich Rachel , Matthew Arnold and Celtic literature: A retrospect 1865–1965 (Oxford, 1965), 31–32; and Jarman Derek (ed.), Aneirin: Y Gododdin: Britain's oldest heroic poem (Llandysul, 1988), p. lxxxiii.

For the epithet applied to Turner see Cantor , Quakers, Jews, and science (ref. 47), 128; for some of Lyell's poetic compositions see Lyell Katherine , Life, letters and journals (ref. 27), i, 55.

Rupke , The great chain of history (ref. 13), 42.

Turner Sharon , The sacred history of the world, as displayed in the Creation and subsequent events to the Deluge (London, 1832), 31, 462. Turner wrote two further volumes in 1834 and 1837.

Turner planned, and later wrote, two subsequent volumes on postdiluvian universal history; but his first volume was designed to stand alone (Sharon Turner, The sacred history (ref. 102), p. vii).

Letter from Buckland to Vernon Harcourt, 20 November 1833, printed in Morrell Thackray (eds), Gentlemen of science: Early correspondence (ref. 84), 235. The projected review was to be written by Sedgwick, but it was never written.

Turner , The sacred history (ref. 102), 461.

Buckland , Geology and mineralogy (ref. 67), i, 29–31.

Rudwick , “The shape and meaning of earth history” (ref. 13), 312–13.

Penn , A comparative estimate (ref. 86), i, 182–5; and Roberts Mary , The progress of Creation (ref. 89), 3.

Miller , The testimony of the rocks (ref. 35), 157–91.

Penn , A comparative estimate (ref. 86), ii, 209–29. Roberts Compare Mary , The progress of Creation (ref. 89), 242.

Ure Andrew , A new system of geology, in which the great revolutions of the earth and animated nature, are reconciled at once to modern science and sacred history (London, 1829), 499–500.

Penn , A comparative estimate (ref. 86), ii, 231–43. On this strategy see Mortenson , The great turning point (ref. 17), 75.

Miller , The testimony of the rocks (ref. 35), 404–6.

Roberts Michael (“Geology and Genesis unearthed” (ref. 15), 247) claims that the literalists all agreed that “the strata were laid down in the Noachian Deluge”. This was believed by many, but others (such as Ure and Turner) believed that the secondary formations had been laid down before the Deluge.

Young George Bird John , A geological survey of the Yorkshire coast, 2nd edn (Whitby, 1828), 356.

Gillispie , Genesis and geology (ref. 6), 264; Millhauser , “The scriptural geologists” (ref. 6), 71; Oldroyd David R. , “Historicism and the rise of historical geology”, History of science, xvii (1979), 191–213 and 227–57, p. 247; and Merrill , The romance of Victorian natural history (ref. 59), 84–85. The attribution to Rennie was made in an anonymous literary notice, “Attributed to J. Rennie, … Conversations on Geology”, Magazine of natural history, i (1829), 280.

[ Rennie ], Conversations on geology (ref. 63), 45, 290–1.

[ Rennie ], Conversations on geology (ref. 63), 290–1.

Ure, however, agreed with Buckland's theory, and Turner recommended Buckland's work on the hyenas as “very interesting, and full of enlarged views and information” ( Turner , The sacred history (ref. 102), 457, n. 51).

[ Rennie ], Conversations on geology (ref. 63), 333–6 and pp. vii–xi. On literalist objections to Buckland's hyena-den theory, see Rupke , The great chain of history (ref. 13), 42–50.

[ Rennie ], Conversations on geology (ref. 63), p. vi.

Ure , A new system of geology (ref. 111), p. vii. Compare [Rennie], Conversations on geology (ref. 63), pp. vii–xi, 290.

Gillispie , Genesis and geology (ref. 6), 194.

Ure , A new system of geology (ref. 111), p. viii.

Ure , A new system of geology (ref. 111), 226–7, 242–3.

Ure , A new system of geology (ref. 111), 243–7.

de Johnsone Fowler , A vindication of the book of Genesis (London, 1838). On this work see Mortenson Terry , “British scriptural geologists: Part 10. Fowler de Johnsone”, Technical journal, xviii (2004), 2004–77. I am grateful to Amanda Melendez for providing me with a copy of this article.

See, for example, William Cockburn's twelve-page pamphlet Remarks on the geological lectures of F. J. Francis, Esq. (London, 1839).

Penn , A comparative estimate (ref. 86), i, 1–2, 169–71.

[ Rodd Thomas ] “Philobiblos”, A defence of the veracity of Moses, in his records of the Creation and general Deluge (London, 1820), pp. i–ii.

[ Rodd ], A defence (ref. 130), 104–5.

On the functions and receptions of Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise see Topham , “Science and popular education” (ref. 53); and Topham , “Beyond the ‘common context’” (ref. 28).

Brooke John Hedley , “The natural theology of the geologists: Some theological strata”, in Jordanova L. J. Porter Roy S. (eds), Images of the earth: Essays in the history of the environmental sciences (Chalfont St Giles, 1979), 39–64; and Brooke Cantor , Reconstructing nature (ref. 2), 176–206.

Turner , The sacred history (ref. 102), 8.

Turner , The sacred history (ref. 102), p. vi.

Turner , The sacred history (ref. 102), p. xii.

Lyell Charles , Principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation (3 vols, London, 1830–3), iii, 385.

Gisborne Thomas , The testimony of natural theology to Christianity, 2nd edn (London, 1818), 16–18.

“Philo”, A short narrative of the creation and formation of the heavens and the earth, &c. as recorded by Moses in the book of Genesis (London, 1819), 3. For a similar opening gambit see “Biblicus Delvinus”, Facts, suggestions, and brief inductions in geology (London, 1838), 1.

Bakewell Robert , An introduction to geology: Comprising the elements of the science in its present advanced state, 3rd edn (London, 1828), 27.

Best S. , After thoughts on reading Dr. Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise (London, 1837), 10; and Brown , Reflections on geology (ref. 77), 41.

On Martin see Balston Thomas , John Martin 1789–1854: His life and works (London, 1947); Feaver William , The art of John Martin (Oxford, 1975); Paley Morton D. , The apocalyptic sublime (New Haven, 1986); and ODNB.

On this painting see Rudwick Martin J. S. , Scenes from deep time: Early pictorial representations of the prehistoric world (Chicago, 1992), 22–24.

Rudwick , Scenes from deep time (ref. 144), 78–85.

On the importance of apocalyptic spectacle for geological popularization, see O'Connor , The earth on show (ref. 34), chap. 7.

Young Bird , A geological survey, 1st edn (ref. 63); and Mantell Gideon Algernon , The fossils of the South Downs; or Illustrations of the geology of Sussex (London, 1822).

[ Rennie ], Conversations on geology (ref. 63), 4. Marcet's book had reached an eleventh edition by 1828. For discussion of the latter, see Myers Greg , “Fictionality, demonstration, and a forum for popular science: Jane Marcet's Conversations on chemistry”, in Gates Shteir (eds), Natural eloquence (ref. 88), 43–60; and Fyfe , “Introduction”, in Roberts Mary , The conchologist's companion (ref. 92), pp. xxi–xxvii.

Earlier examples of didactic geology books aimed in part at children include Mawe J. , Familiar lessons on mineralogy and geology (London, 1821) and Lowry Delvalle , Conversations on mineralogy (2 vols, London, 1822). Rennie's third edition was published in London by J. W. Southgate in 1840. The second edition of 1828 was identified by John Thackray (handwritten note in Thackray's copy of this edition, property of Maggs Bros, London).

Ure , A new system of geology (ref. 111), pp. viii, liv.

Young Bird , A geological survey, 1st edn (ref. 63), 178–9; and Young Bird , A geological survey, 2nd edn (ref. 115), 186–7.

Ure , A new system of geology (ref. 111), p. liii.

Ure , A new system of geology (ref. 111), p. liii.

Ure , A new system of geology (ref. 111), 226, 221, 259.

Ure , A new system of geology (ref. 111), pp. 348–9, 498, vi, 501.

Ure , A new system of geology (ref. 111), pp. liii–liv.

Turner , The sacred history (ref. 102), 520. Fairholme Compare , A general view (ref. 82), 285, on diluvial drifting: “The whole scene now presents itself to the imagination”.

Undated playbill for a vampire melodrama, reproduced in James Louis (ed.), English popular literature 1819–1851 (New York, 1976), 226.

[ Rennie ], Conversations on geology (ref. 63), 362–4. Rennie cites Cuvier for this view, but (like Roberts) manifestly contradicts him.

[ Rennie ], Conversations on geology (ref. 63), 5.

[ Rennie ], Conversations on geology (ref. 63), 7–8, noted by Oldroyd, “Historicism” (ref. 116), 247.

[ Rennie ], Conversations on geology (ref. 63), 45. On the response to Burnet see Stafford Fiona J. , The last of the race: The growth of a myth from Milton to Darwin (Oxford, 1994), 34–36. On later geologists coveting Milton's laurels, see Klaver , Geology and religious sentiment (ref. 13), 15–17; O'Connor Ralph , “Thomas Hawkins and geological spectacle”, Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, cxiv (2003), 2003–41; and O'Connor Ralph , “Hugh Miller and geological spectacle”, in Borley Lester (ed.), Celebrating the life and times of Hugh Miller: Scotland in the early 19th century (Cromarty, 2003), 237–58.

See, for example, Fairholme , A general view (ref. 82), pp. xii, 323–4.

This may be an allusion to Edward Young's famous lines in Night thoughts (1745) on the antediluvian world: “Of One departed World / I see the mighty Shadow” ( Young Edward , Night thoughts, ed. by Cornford Stephen (Cambridge, 1989), 260 [Night IX, lines 127–8]).

Brown , Reflections on geology (ref. 77), 39–40.

Brown , Reflections on geology (ref. 77), 40.

Defoe Daniel , Robinson Crusoe, ed. by Coetzee J. M. (Oxford, 1999), 155.

Brown , Reflections on geology (ref. 77), 39.

O'Connor , The earth on show (ref. 34), chap. 4.

Buckland , Geology and mineralogy (ref. 67); Mantell Gideon , The wonders of geology (2 vols, London, 1838); and Miller Hugh , The Old Red Sandstone; or New walks in an old field (Edinburgh, 1841). For discussion see O'Connor , The earth on show (ref. 34), chaps. 6 and 9–10.

Fyfe , Science and salvation (ref. 7), 24.

Buckland's Geology and mineralogy had to wait twenty-two years for a third edition, Mantell's Wonders of geology went into a seventh edition after nineteen years, and Miller's Old Red Sandstone went into a seventh edition after sixteen years.

See Yule , “The impact of science” (ref. 13), 328–9. On disputes among élite geologists see Rudwick , The great Devonian controversy (ref. 13), and Secord James A. , Controversy in Victorian geology: The Cambrian—Silurian dispute (Princeton, 1986). On their battles with transmutationists see Secord , Victorian sensation (ref. 28).

Deluc Jean André , Letters on physical history, transl. by De la Fite Henry (London, 1831).

[ Hawthorne Nathaniel ] “Peter Parley”, Universal history, on the basis of geography, 7th edn (London, 1860), 14. This book was first published in the United States in 1837; the seventh edition cited is one of many unauthorized British reprints of this book. On Hawthorne and “Peter Parley” see Roselle Daniel , Samuel Griswold Goodrich, creator of Peter Parley: A study of his life and work (Albany, 1968), 76–79.

Good John Mason , The book of nature (3 vols, London, 1826), i, 158–70.

Good John Mason , The book of nature, 3rd edn (3 vols, London, 1834), i, p. viii.

Good , The book of nature, 3rd edn (ref. 176), i, 151, n.

Anon, “Principles of geology”, Athenaeum, 1830, 595–7; [ Lindley John ], “A general view of the geology of Scripture”, Athenaeum, 1833, 228–9 (on which see Rupke , The great chain of history (ref. 13), 47–48); and [ Apjohn James ], “Principles of geology”, Athenaeum, 1833, 409–11.

Anon., “Principles of geology”, Eclectic review, 3rd ser., vi (1831), 75–81, p. 80.

Hack Maria , Geological sketches, and glimpses of the ancient earth, 2nd edn (London, 1835), 166–7, 214; Turner , The sacred history (ref. 102), 446–58; and Roberts , The progress of Creation (ref. 89), p. vi. Compare Thomas Dick's approach as discussed by Astore, Observing God (ref. 7), 93–94. For other examples of boundary-blurring, see Yule , “The impact of science” (ref. 13), 97–98, 328–30; and Roberts , “Geology and Genesis unearthed” (ref. 15), 246–7.

On this cementing process in early nineteenth-century science generally see Yeo , Defining science (ref. 39), 32–39; on its application to geology, see Secord James A. , “Introduction”, in Lyell Charles , Principles of geology, ed. by Secord James A. (abridged edn, London, 1997), pp. ix–xliii, see pp. xxiii–xxix.

Allies Jabez , Observations on certain curious indentations in the Old Red Sandstone of Worcestershire and Herefordshire, considered as the tracks of antediluvian animals (London, [1835]), 45. On Allies see ODNB.

Mller Hugh , “Geology of the Bass”, in McCrie Thomas (ed.), The Bass Rock: Its civil and ecclesiastic history, geology, martyrology, zoology and botany (Edinburgh, 1848), [51]–[139], pp. [98]–[99]; Hawkins Thomas , The book of the great sea-dragons, Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, gedolim taninim, of Moses. Extinct monsters of the ancient earth (London, 1840); Thompson Thomas , “An attempt to ascertain the animals designated in the Scriptures by the names Leviathan and Behemoth”, Magazine of natural history, viii (1835), 1835–7, 307–21 (on which see Rupke , The great chain of history (ref. 13), 220).

Wood J. G. , Animal characteristics: Or, Sketches and anecdotes of animal life, 2nd ser. (London, [1860]), 4, quoted and discussed in Bernard Lightman, “The story of nature: Victorian popularizers and scientific narrative”, Victorian review, xxv/2 (1999–2000), 1–29, p. 14.

Cockburn William , The creation of the world (London, 1840), 9.

Orange , Philosophers and provincials (ref. 13), 59–62; Orange , “The idols of the theatre” (ref. 13); Morrell Thackray , Gentlemen of science: Early years (ref. 13), 240–4; and Klaver , Geology and religious sentiment (ref. 13), 112–14.

Harrison Peter , The Bible, Protestantism, and the rise of natural science (Cambridge, 1998).

Browne , “Noah's Ark” (ref. 5), 128.

Numbers, The creationists (ref. 18); and Moore , “The creationist cosmos” (ref. 18). Numbers's book, in particular, contains valuable discussions of audience responses to the twentieth-century institutions, writers, and preachers whose careers form the main focus of his book.

Cooter Pumfrey , “Separate spheres” (ref. 1), 256.