Eurocentric Ideology of Continental Drift

See for example Wood Denis (with Fells John ), The power of maps (New York and London, 1992).

See for example Gregory Derek , Geographical imaginations (Oxford, 1994); and Livingstone David N. , “Lost in space”, The Times higher education supplement, 11 March 1994, 15.

Hawke Bob , The Hawke memoirs (Melbourne, 1994), 501.

See for example Rudwick M. J. S. , “The emergence of a visual language for geological science 1760–1840”, History of science, xiv (1976), 149–95; idem, Scenes from deep time: Early pictorial representations of the prehistoric world (Chicago, 1992); Langer Wolfhart , “Frühe Bilder aus der Vorzeit”, Fossilien, vii (1990), 202–5; and Rupke Nicolaas A. , “Metonymies of empire: Visual representations of prehistoric times, 1830–90”, in Mazzolini Renato G. (ed.), Non-verbal communication in science prior to 1900 (Florence, 1993), 513–28. Art historians, such as Allan Ellenius (“Ecological vision and wildlife painting towards the end of the 19th century”, in Ellenius Allan (ed.), The natural sciences and the arts (Uppsala, 1985), 147–65), Holländer Hans (“‘Es rauscht in den Schachtelhalmen verdächtig leuchtet das Meer…’”, in Brock Bazon Preiss Achim (eds), Ikonographia: Anleitung zum Lesen von Bildern (Munich, 1990), 179–200) or Martin Kemp (who runs a large-scale research project on the history of natural history art), too, have for some time been working on the interpretation of scientific illustrations. A burgeoning interest among historians of science in the study of visual communication is exemplified by Daston Lorraine Galison Peter , “The image of objectivity”, Representations, xl (1992), 81–128, and the twenty papers edited by Mazzolini , op. cit.

But see Brouwer Aart , “Was veranlasste Alfred Wegener zum Studium der Kontinentverschiebung?”, Geologische Rundschau, lxxii (1983), 793–41.

For an overview see Kiernan V. G. , The lords of humankind: European attitudes towards the outside world in the Imperial Age (London, 1969). On science and Euro-imperialism, see for example Pratt Mary Louise , Imperial eyes: Travel writing and transculturation (London and New York, 1992). On the history of European views of the Americas see Pagden Anthony , European encounters with the New World: From Renaissance to Romanticism (New Haven and London, 1993).

‘Continentalism’ is proposed in analogy to not only ‘racism’, but also Peter Singer's ‘speciesism’, in Singer Peter , Animal liberation: Towards an end to man's inhumanity to animals (Wellingborough, UK, 1975), 202.

The ‘pangaea’ exegesis can be found in Verstegen Richard , A restitution of decayed intelligence (Antwerp, 1605), 95; Plaçet Françis , La Corruption du grande et du petit monde (3rd edn, Paris, 1688), 65–70. Also Genesis 10:25 was cited: Lilienthal Theodor Christoph , Die gute Sache der Göttlichen Offenbahrung, vii (Königsberg, 1756), 246–50. See also Rupke Nicolaas A. , “Continental drift before 1900”, Nature, ccxxvii (1970), 349–50.

See Frängsmyr Tore , “Linnaeus as a geologist”, in Frängsmyr Tore (ed.), Linnaeus: The man and his work (Canton, Mass., 1994), 110–55.

See Bosch J. (ed.), Mr. Willem Bilderdijk: De ondergang der eerste wereld (Zwolle, 1959), 107, 116.

See Eriksson Gunnar , The Atlantic vision: Olaus Rudbeck and Baroque science (Canton, Mass., 1994).

For a brief discussion of Bilderdijk's scientific views see Rupke Nicolaas A. , “Romanticism in the Netherlands”, in Porter Roy Teich Mikuláš (eds), Romanticism in national context (Cambridge, 1988), 196–202. On Lilienthal see ref. 8 above.

Camerini Jane R. , “The physical atlas of Heinrich Berghaus: Distribution maps as scientific knowledge”, in Mazzolini (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 4), 479–512.

The use made of Berghaus's physical atlas was discussed by Carl Hartmann in his German rendition of the third edition of Somerville's book: Kosmos für gebildete Frauen ( Grimma Leipzig , 1851), pp. vii–x. On Berghaus see Engelmann Gerhard , Heinrich Berghaus: Der Kartograph von Potsdam (Halle, 1977), and also Beck Hanno (ed.), Alexander von Humboldt. Kosmos, ii (Darmstadt, 1993), 364–87.

A book in which some of Berghaus's maps were redrawn, simplified and used for Euro-glorification purposes was Caspar Friedrich Fuchs's Medizinische Geographie (Berlin, 1853). For a discussion of the Eurocentric character of nineteenth-century medical geography, see Rupke Nicolaas A. , “Humboldtian medicine”, Medical history, xl (1996), 293–310.

“Erdkarte zur Übersicht der Vertheilung des Starren und Flüssigen”, in Berghaus Heinrich , Physikalischer Atlas, i (Gotha, 1845), 3rd section (geology), no. 1.

Ritter Carl , “Über geographische Stellung und horizontale Ausbreitung der Erdtheile”, Abhandlungen der historisch-philologische Klasse der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin , 1826 (Berlin, 1829), 103–27; “Bemerkungen über Veranschaulichungsmittel räumlicher Verhältnisse bei graphischen Darstellungen durch Form und Zahl”, ibid. , 1828 (Berlin, 1831), 213–32. These papers were republished in Ritter's Einleitung zur allgemeinen vergleichenden Geographie, und Abhandlungen zur Begründung einer mehr wissenschaftlichen Behandlung der Erdkunde (Berlin, 1852). See also Ritter , Die Erdkunde in Verhältniss zur Natur und zur Geschichte des Menschen, i (Berlin, 1817), 63.

Ritter , “Über geographische Stellung” (ref. 17), 106–7. The German original of this quintessential passage runs as follows: “In der Mitte der nördlichen Landhalbkugel, oder dieses grossen Erdkreises, liegt der, durch seine gesteigerte Civilisation alle andere Erdräume beherrschende Theil von Europa, durch möglichst vielseitigste Berührung mit der grossen Continentalform des Planeten, in dem Mittelpunkte der grössten Wirksamkeit, mit der am weitesten gewonnenen Sphäre seiner historischen Einwirkungen und Entwicklungen. In die Mitte der Wasserhalbkugel, oder jenes grossen Wasserkreises, wurden dagegen die australischen Gestade und Inselgruppen, ganz ausserhalb aller natürlichen, frühzeitig entwickelnden, Berührungen mit dem grossen Kreise der Continente gestellt, daher jene Völker, unsre Antipoden, nothwendig erst nach den vollendetem Kunstmitteln oceanischer Schiffahrt, also nach dem Ablauf der Weltgeschichte von Jahrtausenden, mit hereingezogen werden konnten, in den Kreis allgemeinerer Civilisation. Blos ihre räumliche Stellung auf dem Planeten bewirkte dieses Verhältniss, so wie die merkwürdige Aneignungsfähigkeit Europa's, für die Mannigfaltigkeiten der übrigen Landwelt, und die frühere Zeitigung universeller Cultur zu rückwirkender, allgemeinerer Ausbreitung, bis zum äussersten Ring des Landeskreises, wenigstens mitbedingt ward, durch diese centrale Stellung zum Planeten, oder durch die Weltstellung des Theiles zum Ganzen.” See further Beck Hanno , Carl Ritter: Genius der Geographie (Berlin, 1979).

[ Holland Henry ], “Physical geography”, Quarterly review, lxxxiii (1848), 318.

Yearbook of facts, 1859, 250.

Herschel John F. W. , Physical geography (2nd edn, Edinburgh, 1862), 14–15.

Bromme Traugott (ed.), Atlas zu Alex. v. Humboldt's Kosmos. Atlas zur Physik der Welt (Stuttgart, 1851), plate 5, Fig. c (1, 2).

Gordon E. O. , The life and correspondence of William Buckland (London, 1894), 82. See also: Buckland William , Geology and mineralogy considered with reference to natural theology , i (3rd edn, London, 1858), 484–53; and Rupke Nicolaas A. , The great chain of history: William Buckland and the English school of geology, 1814–49 (Oxford, 1983), 255–66.

Owen republished the stratigraphic table with its vignette, in, for example, his outspokenly teleological Instances of the power of God as manifested in his animal creation (London, 1864), 33.

Robb Alfred A. , “Anticipation of Wegener's hypothesis”, Nature, cxxvi (1930), 841. Another simplified reproduction of Snider's maps was by Tiercy G. , “Une note d'histoire: De l'hypothèse des translations continentales”, Compte rendu des séances de la Société de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Genève, xlix (1932), 127; the essence of Wegener's hypothesis was described by Thiercy in the following Eurocentric way: “L'Amerique se serait détachée du massif europo-africain.”.

See also Snyder John P. , Flattening the Earth: Two thousand years of map projections (Chicago and London, 1993).

Snider Antonio , La création et ses mystères dévoilés (Paris, 1859), 316. Bibliographical sources give 1858 as the year in which Snider's book was published. The copy used in this study, borrowed from the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Médecine, in Paris, carries the date 1859.

Ibid., 317.

Ibid., 324.

Ibid., 339.

Owen Richard , Key to the geology of the globe (New York, 1857), 84, 254.

Ibid., diagram 1.

Ibid., 23, 255.

The few biographical facts known about Snider are taken from his own works (refs 27 and 35).

Snider-Pellegrini Antonio , “Quelques observations sur les moyens de développer le commerce de l'Algérie avec l'intérieur de l'Afrique, et en particulier sur ceux de se rendre d'Algérie dans le Sénégal en passant par Tombouctou”, Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, xiii (1857), 161–94, p. 182.

Owen ranks an entry in The national cyclopaedia of American biography , xiv (New York, 1917), 276. Owen added an autobiographical preface to his Key (ref. 31), 9–18. See also Albjerg V. L. , Richard Owen: Scotland 1810, Indiana 1890 (Lafayette(?), Indiana, 1946).

Owen , Key (ref. 31), diagram 2.

Ibid., diagram 6.

Ibid., 133–49.

See Greene John C. , The death of Adam (New York, 1961), 108, 153–4; Gerbi Antonello , The dispute of the New World (Pittsburgh, 1973).

Pratt , op. cit. (ref. 6), 140.

Wegener Alfred , Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane (1st edn, Braunschweig, 1915), Figs 17 and 20.

Ibid. (2nd edn, Braunschweig, 1920), Fig. 23.

Ibid. (3rd edn, Braunschweig, 1922), Figs 1 and 2.

Ibid. (4th edn, Braunschweig, 1929), Figs 4 and 5.

Ibid., 20. See also the 3rd edn, 1–3.

Ibid. (4th edn), 3.

Ibid., 20.

Molengraaff G. A. F. , “Wegener's continental drift”, in van Waterschoot van der Gracht W. A. J. M. (eds), Theory of continental drift (Tulsa, Oklahoma, and London, 1928), 90–92.

van Waterschoot van der Gracht W. A. J. M. , “Remarks regarding the papers offered by the other contributors to the symposium”, in ibid., 207.

See ref. 63 below.

Naomi Oreskes has been working on “The rejection of continental drift” by examining the archival papers of a number of key American and European participants in the drift controversy. In addition, Mott T. Green is concentrating on Alfred Wegener. On Wegener's Greenland expeditions, see for example his Mit Motorboot und Schlitten in Grönland (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1930).

Boule Marcellin , “La guerre et la paléontologie”, in Petit Gabriel Leudet Maurice (eds), Les Allemands et la science (Paris, 1916), 43–45. The edition of the German manifesto cited is: Morel-Fatio A. , Les Versions allemande et française du manifeste des intellectuels allemands dit des quatre-vingt-treize (2nd edn, Paris, 1915).

Taylor Frank B. , “Bearing of the Tertiary mountain belt on the origin of the Earth's plan”, Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, xxi (1910), 179–226. See further Laudan Rachel , “Frank Bursley Taylor's theory of continental drift”, Earth sciences history, iv (1985), 138–59.

Baker Howard B. , “The Atlantic rift and its meaning” (privately issued, 1932), Fig. 6, opposite p. 16.

Carey S. W. , “The tectonic approach to continental drift”, in Carey S. W. (ed.), Continental drift: A symposium (Hobart, Tasmania, 1958), 177–355.

Taylor , op. cit. (ref. 54), 218.

Vine Fred J. , “The continental drift debate”, Nature, cclxvi (1977), 19–22, p. 19.

Idem, personal communication, 29 Aug. 1995. For the maps see idem, “The geophysical year”, Nature, ccxxvii (1970), 1013–17, Figs 1 and 2.

Assuming that continental drift theory showed the influence of contemporary Eurocentric ideology, was its replacement by the egalitarian plate tectonics merely a matter of scientific rationality or was this replacement facilitated by the climate of cultural opinion that followed the Second World War? This question falls outside the scope of my paper, but an attempt to answer it could be a worthwhile contribution to the history of geophysics.

Morgan W. Jason , “Hot spot tracks and the early rifting of the Atlantic”, Tectonophysics, xciv (1983), 123–39. See also Kearey Philip Vine Frederick J. , Global tectonics (Oxford, 1990), 78–82.

I am grateful to Fred Vine for having pointed this out to me: Personal communication (ref. 59).

Marvin Ursula B. , Continental drift: The evolution of a concept (Washington, D.C., 1973); Hallam Anthony , A revolution in the earth sciences: From continental drift to plate tectonics (Oxford, 1973); Wood Robert Muir , The dark side of the Earth (London, 1985); LeGrand Homer E. , Drifting continents and shifting theories: The modern revolution in geology and scientific change (Cambridge, 1988). See also Carozzi Albert V. , “New historical data on the origin of the theory of continental drift”, Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, lxxxi (1970), 283–6; Rupke , “Continental drift before 1900” (ref. 8); Frankel Henry , “Arthur Holmes and continental drift”, The British journal for the history of science, xi (1978), 130–50; Schwarzbach Martin , Alfred Wegener: The father of continental drift (Madison, Wisc., 1986); Oreskes Naomi , “The rejection of continental drift”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, xviii(1988), 311–48, and The rejection of continental drift: Theory and practice in American earth sciences (in preparation, and gratefully cited with permission).

Vine , op. cit. (ref. 58).

Van Houten Franklyn B. , “A precocious Atlantic reconstruction”, Geology, iii (1975), 194–5; and LeGrand , op. cit. (ref. 63).

Blackett P. M. S. , “Introduction”, in Blackett P. M. S. Bullard Edward Runcorn S. K. (eds), A symposium on continental drift (London, 1965), pp. vii–x; Smith P. J. , “Continental drift and the humanist”, Earth sciences review, iv (1968), A263–7.

Wood , op. cit. (ref. 63).

Oreskes , op. cit. (ref. 63). On nationally different reactions see Carozzi Albert V. , “The reaction in Continental Europe to Wegener's theory of continental drift”, Earth sciences history, iv (1985), 122–37; and Marvin Ursula B. , “The British reception of Alfred Wegener's continental drift hypothesis”, ibid., 138–59.