Representing Novelty: Charles Babbage,Charles Lyell,and Experiments in Early Victorian Geology

A few indicative accounts of how Lyell used the Temple of Serapis include David Oldroyd, Darwinian impacts (Milton Keynes, 1980), 44; Bowler Peter , The Fontana history of the environmental sciences (London, 1992), discussion of plate 6; Rudwick Martin J. S. , “Minerals, strata, fossils”, in Jardine Nick Secord James Spary Emma , (eds), Cultures of natural history (Cambridge, 1996), 282; Secord James , “Introduction”, in Lyell Charles , Principles of geology (London, 1997), frontispiece. For discussion of late nineteenth-century critiques of Lyell which focus on the Temple of Serapis, see Greene Mott , Geology in the nineteenth century: Changing views of a changing world (Ithaca and London, 1982), 184.

Cannon Walter , “The impact of uniformitarianism: Two letters from John Herschel to Charles Lyell, 1836–1837”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cv (1961), 301–14, p. 304; also Cannon Walter , “The uniformitarian–catastrophist debate”, Isis, li (1960), 38–55, p. 43.

Cannon , “Uniformitarian–catastrophist debate” (ref. 2), 45; Brush Stephen , “Nineteenth-century debates about the inside of the earth: Solid, liquid, or gas?”, Annals of science, xxxvi (1979), 225–54, p. 231; Smith Crosbie Wise M. Norton , Energy and empire: A biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge, 1989), 195; Smith Crosbie , “Geologists and mathematicians: The rise of physical geology”, in Harman Paul , (ed.), Wranglers and physicists: Studies on Cambridge physics in the nineteenth century (Manchester, 1985), 49–83, p. 51; Smith Crosbie , “William Hopkins and the shaping of dynamical geology: 1830–1860”, The British journal for the history of science, xxii (1989), 27–52; see also Lawrence Philip , “Charles Lyell versus the theory of central heat: A reappraisal of Lyell's place in the history of geology”, Journal of the history of biology, xi (1978), 101–28.

Cannon , “Uniformitarian–catastrophist debate” (ref. 2), 45; Brush , “Nineteenth-century debates” (ref. 3), 231.

Ian Hacking has suggested that Babbage was an important figure in creating a “world [that] was becoming numerical” in the early nineteenth century; Andrew Warwick has also identified Babbage's contribution to a “culture of calculation” grounded in the late 1820s and 1830s. Crosbie Smith and M. Norton Wise, who do not refer to Babbage, have suggested that Hopkins's and Thomson's work on physical geology was a driving force behind the creation of such a calculating culture much later in the Victorian period. I argue here that examining Babbage's work on the relations between physics and geology in the 1820s and early 1830s provides a better link between these different approaches to an important aspect of the development of Victorian science. Hacking Ian , The taming of chance (Cambridge, 1990), chap. 7; Warwick Andrew , “The laboratory of theory or what's exact about the exact sciences?”, in Wise M. Norton , (ed.), The values of precision (Princeton, 1995), 311–51, p. 322; Smith Wise , Energy and empire (ref. 3).

Lyell to Herschel, 9 September 1828, in Katherine Lyell (ed.), Life, letters, and journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart (2 vols, London, 1881; hereafter LLJ), i, 201; see also Wilson Leonard G. , Charles Lyell. The years to 1841: The revolution in geology (New Haven and London, 1972), 223.

Wilson , Years to 1841 (ref. 6), 218; Brocchi Giovanni Battista , Conchiologia fossile subapennina con osservazioni geologiche sugli Apennini e sul suolo adjacente (2 vols, Milan, 1814).

Lyell Both Wilson in Wilson, Years to 1841 (ref. 6), 231; Rudwick Martin J. S. , “Lyell on Etna, and the antiquity of the earth”, in Schneer Cecil J. , (ed.), Toward a history of geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 288–309, p. 291.

Lyell Charles , Principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface, by references to causes now in operation (3 vols, London, 1830–33), i (1830), 449–9, p. 449 for quotation.

Ibid., 449.

All quotations from ibid., 453–4.

A detailed account of the area, for example, had just been published in a series of articles by James Forbes (later professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh), who also provided a number of additional descriptions of the Temple and surrounding monuments gathered from extensive historical sources; see in particular Forbes James D. , “Physical notices of the bay of Naples”, and “On the Temple of Jupiter Serapis at Pozzuoli, and the phenomena which it exhibits”, The Edinburgh journal of science, n.s., i (1829), 124–41; 260–86.

Lyell Charles , “[Review of] Transactions of the Geological Society of London, v. 1, 2nd ser., London, 1824”, Quarterly review, xxxiv (1826), 507–40, where he criticized Cuvier's theory of successive catastrophic inundation stating: “To explain such phenomena by supposing that the ocean has alternatively risen and fallen, in other words that its level has been, both frequently and permanently, changed over the whole globe, is an hypothesis unsupported by the facts. But of changes in the level of the land we have ample testimony, and some are particularly recorded in the volume before us where an account is given of the late memorable earthquake that visited Chile in 1822, and continued to be felt there till near the end of 1823”; cited in Leonard G. Wilson, “The origins of Charles Lyell's uniformitarianism”, in Albritton Claude C. Jr (ed.), Uniformity and simplicity: A symposium on the principle of the uniformity of nature (New York, 1967), 35–62, p. 53. The Chilean earthquake was also cited in Lyell , Principles (ref. 9), i (1830), 455.

Rudwick Martin J. S. has closely examined Lyell's presentation of evidence and rhetorical strategies in his “The strategy of Lyell's Principles of Geology”, Isis, lxi (1970), 4–33; and “Historical analogies in the early geological work of Charles Lyell”, Janus, lxiv (1977), 89–107.

See Forbes , “On the Temple of Jupiter Serapis” (ref. 12).

Lyell , Principles (ref. 9), i (1830), 456.

Buxton Henry W. , Memoir of the life and labours of the late Charles Babbage Esq., FRS, ed. by Hyman Anthony (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 81–83; Hyman Anthony , Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the computer (Oxford, 1982), 70–71.

Lyell twice specifically referred to the “sudden” movements of the Temple brought on by geological phenomena; see Principles (ref. 9), i (1830), 455 and 456.

In his publications on the Temple of Serapis (an “Abstract” published in 1834 — See below — And a full-length paper published in 1847) and in his correspondence, Babbage was quite clear about what observational “facts” were transferred straight from his travel diary and what separate inferences were proffered. The following account of Babbage's activities deals with the former; Babbage's theoretical explanations will be dealt with below. This narrative is taken from his later, full length publication: Babbage Charles , “Observations on the Temple of Serapis, at Pozzuoli, near Naples, with remarks on certain causes which may produce geological cycles of great extent”, The quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London, iii (1847), 186–217.

Ibid., 187 and 197 respectively.

Ibid., 203.

Greene , Geology (ref. 1), 105.

Rudwick Martin J. S. , “Charles Lyell, F.R.S. (1797–1875) and his London lectures on geology, 1832–1833”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxix (1975), 231–63.

Babbage Charles , Reflections on the decline of science in England, and on some of its causes (London, 1830); for Lyell's sympathies see Lyell (ed.), LLJ (ref. 6), i, 385; Rudwick , “Charles Lyell” (ref. 23), 249; Wilson , Years to 1841 (ref. 6), chap. 11.

Lyell to Babbage, 5 January 1833, in Lyell , (ed.), LLJ (ref. 6), i, 395, for first quotation; Lyell to Babbage, [January?] 1833, British Library MSS ADD 37188, f. 134, for latter quotation.

Ibid., f. 167.

Ibid., f. 194.

Woodward Horace B. , The history of the Geological Society of London (London, 1907), 76.

“Formidable” in Fitton to Babbage, 13 February 1834, British Library MSS ADD 37188, f. 204; “Rejoice” in Fitton to Babbage, 28 February 1834, ibid., f. 225.

Lyell to Babbage, [February] 1834, ibid., f. 227.

Brush , “Nineteenth-century debates” (ref. 3); Lawrence , “Charles Lyell” (ref. 3).

Baptiste Jean Fourier Joseph , “Remarques générales sur les températures du globe terrestre et des espaces planétaires”, Annales de chimie et de physique, xxvii (1824), 136–67; Cordier Pierre-Louis-Antoine , “Essai sur la température de l'intérieur de la terre”, Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences, vii (1827), 473–556; idem, “Examination of the experiments hitherto published on subterranean temperature, together with experiments and inquiries relative to this examination”, The Edinburgh new philosophical journal, v (1828), 277–91; vi (1829), 32–45.

Lyell to Babbage , 16 January 1834, in Lyell (ed.), LLJ (ref. 6), i, 403–4.

The concept of subterranean lava tides was discussed between Lyell and Babbage with reference to the theory of tides of William Whewell and John Lubbock; see Lyell to Babbage , [1834], British Library MSS ADD 37188, ff. 184–5; in the third edition of the Principles (1834), Lyell began to refer to contemporary debates regarding the earth's central nucleus (particularly vol. ii, 273–95); he continued to revise his chapters on “Causes of volcanic heat” and “Interior of the earth”, later incorporating the work of William Hopkins (see discussion below): See his comments, for example, in Lyell to Charles Darwin, 4 August 1867, in Lyell (ed.), LLJ (ref. 6), i, 415–16; Wilson , Years to 1841 (ref. 6), 386–9.

Babbage , “Observations” (ref. 19), 207.

Ibid., 212, for both quotations.

Bartlett William H. C. , “Experiments on the expansion and contraction of building stones, by variations of temperature”, The American journal of science and arts, xxii (1832), 136–40.

For Babbage's unique role in the production and distribution of printed calculating tables, see Warwick , “The laboratory of theory” (ref. 5), 320–2.

Babbage , “Observations” (ref. 19), 204.

Ibid., 206.

Fitton to Babbage, 14 March 1834, British Library MSS ADD 37188, f. 252.

Greenough George Bellas , “Address delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Geological Society, on the 21^st of February 1834”, Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, ii (1838), 42–70; Wilson , Years to 1841 (ref. 6), 389. For Greenough's reflections on Babbage's paper, see Greenough , “An address delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Geological Society of London, on the 20^th of February, 1835”, Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, ii (1838), 145–75, pp. 165–8.

Fitton to Babbage , 14 March 1834, British Library MSS ADD 37188, f. 252; on the separation of facts and theory in discussions at the Geological Society see Rudwick Martin J. S. , The great Devonian controversy: The shaping of scientific knowledge among gentlemanly specialists (Chicago, 1985), 18–27.

Fitton to Babbage , 14 March 1834, British Library MSS ADD 37188, f. 253.

Rennie George to Babbage , 22 March 1834, ibid., f. 278.

Rennie to Babbage , 6 April 1834, ibid., f. 301.

Adie Alexander , “On the expansion of different kinds of stone from an increase of temperature, with a description of the pyrometer used in making the experiments”, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, xiii (1836), 354–72, see especially p. 370; Babbage , “Observations” (ref. 19), 204.

Babbage Charles , “Abstract: Observations on the Temple of Serapis at Pozzuoli”, Proceedings of the Geological Society, ii (1838), 72–76; although the second ‘volume’ of the Proceedings was dated 1838, separate issues were released each year.

von Humboldt Alexander , “Des lignes isothermes et de la chaleur sur la globe”, Mémoirs de physique d'Arcueil, iii (1817), 462–602; English translation as idem, “On isothermal lines, and the distribution of heat over the globe”, Edinburgh philosophical journal, iii (1820), 1–20, 256–74; iv (1821), 23–37, 262–81; v (1821), 28–39. See also Rupke Nicolaas A. , “Humboldtian medicine”, Medical history, xl (1996), 293–310, p. 300. Although he offered no direct acknowledgement, Babbage had met Humboldt while travelling through Paris with John Herschel in summer 1821, and later recollected having discussions with Humboldt about techniques in map-making and was shown “a map shaded on the principle of lines of equal elevation”; in Babbage, Passages from the life of a philosopher (London, 1864), 200–1.

Herschel to Lyell , 20 February 1836, fully reprinted in Cannon, “Impact” (ref. 2), 304–11, p. 305.

Herschel quoted in ibid., 305; for further discussion of Herschel's theory, see Greene , Geology (ref. 1), 105–11.

Lyell to Herschel , 1 June 1836, in Lyell (ed.), LLJ (ref. 6), i, 468.

Babbage Charles , The ninth Bridgewater treatise: A fragment (1st edn, London, 1837; 2nd edn, 1838), all quotations from the second edition, Note I. As early as 1834, Lyell was aware of Babbage's plans to write a “ninth” Bridgewater; see Lyell to Babbage , 7 January 1834, British Library MSS ADD 37188, f. 150.

Topham Jonathan , “Science and popular education in the 1830s: The role of the Bridgewater Treatises”, The British journal for the history of science, xxv (1992), 397–430.

Babbage , Ninth Bridgewater (ref. 53), p. xiii.

Ibid. , 5. A citation and additional note to the work of the physicist O. F. Mossotti enabled Babbage to elaborate on how a single mathematical law which regulated matter could unite the sciences of chemistry, crystallography, and astronomy, while the Ninth extended this to the rest of mineralogy and geology.

Ibid., 5–8.

Ibid., 11.

For his critique of human abilities, see, for example, “On observation”, in his Decline of science (ref. 24), chap. 5.

Gillispie Charles , Genesis and geology (New York, 1959), 208; for Babbage's claim that his position had episcopal blessing, see Brooke John , “The natural theology of geologists: Some theoretical strata”, in Jordanova L. J. Porter Roy (eds.), Images of the earth: Essays in the history of the environmental sciences (BSHS monograph, Chalfont St Giles, 1978), 39–64, p. 48.

So wide-flung was Babbage's project that in 1833 his friend Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset, relayed his observations that “in looking round for some laws of nature, that might be permanent for a time, and after that time might vary according to a more general law, and might so far resemble some of the calculations of your engine, I have stumbled upon the propagation of aphids…. The case appears to me to be very much in point, and therefore I take this point in mentioning it to you. I have mentioned it to others, by whom it has been rejected as a fable”, Somerset to Babbage, 8 July 1833, British Library MSS ADD 37188, f. 7.

Chambers Robert , Vestiges of the natural history of creation, ed. by Secord James (Chicago, 1994), 184.

Lyell to Babbage , May 1837, in Lyell (ed.), LLJ (ref. 6), ii, 9–10; Ashworth William J. , “Memory, efficiency, and symbolic analysis: Charles Babbage, John Herschel, and the industrial mind”, Isis, lxxxvii (1996), 629–53, p. 651.

Babbage , Ninth Bridgewater (ref. 53), 11.

Rupke Nicolaas A. , The great chain of history: William Buckland and the English school of geology (Oxford, 1983), chap. 18; Rudwick Martin J. S. , “Poulett Scrope on the volcanoes of Auvergne: Lyellian time and political economy”, The British journal for the history of science, vii (1974), 203–42.

Babbage Charles , On the economy of machinery and manufactures (London, 1832).

A bibliography of Babbage's works is printed at the end of his Passages (ref. 49), 493–6.

Babbage , Passages (ref. 49), 385.

Babbage quoted in Hyman , Charles Babbage (ref. 17), 84.

Secord (ed.), Principles (ref. 1), p. xxviii.

Hyman, Charles Babbage (ref. 17), 140.

Babbage quoted in Berg Maxine , The machinery question: The making of political economy, 1815–1848 (Cambridge, 1982), 185.

Babbage Charles , “On a method of expressing by signs the action of machinery”, Philosophical transactions, cxvi (1826), 250–65; Lardner D. , “Babbage's calculating engine”, Edinburgh review, lix (1834), 263–327, pp. 318–19.

Buxton , Memoir (ref. 17), 225.

For accounts of associated developments in geological illustration at the time, see Cook Karen S. , “From false starts to firm beginnings: Early colour printing of geological maps”, Imago mundi: The international journal for the history of cartography, xlvii (1995), 155–172; Pearson Karen S. , “Mechanization and the area symbol: Cartographic techniques in 19^th century geographical journals”, Cartographica, xx (1983), 1–34; Rudwick Martin J. S. , “The emergence of a visual language for geological science 1760–1840”, History of science, xiv (1976), 149–95.

Babbage , Ninth Bridgewater (ref. 53), Appendix G.

Ibid., Appendix N.

Ibid., 115.

Ibid., 115.

Buxton Memoir (ref. 17), 85.

For similar ways that scientific ideas develop from other deeply rooted concerns, see Rudwick Martin J. S. , “Transposed concepts from the human sciences in the early work of Charles Lyell”, in Jordanova Porter , (eds.), Images of the earth (ref. 60), 67–83; also Rudwick on “Scrope and political economy” (ref. 65); Wise M. Norton , “Mediating machines”, Science in context, ii (1988), 77–113, for “productive force in the generation of knowledge” in the work of William Thomson.

De la Beche Henry T. , Researches in theoretical geology (London, 1834), 162–3; Hyman , Charles Babbage (ref. 17), 71.

Lyell Charles , Principles of geology: Being an inquiry how far the former changes of the earth's surface are referable to causes now in operation (4th edn, 4 vols, London, 1835), ii, 325.

Ibid., ii, 383–4.

Lyell Charles , “On the successive changes of the Temple of Serapis”, Notices of the proceedings at the meetings of the members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, ii (1858), 207–14; see also Wilson Leonard G. , Sir Charles Lyell's scientific journals on the species question (New Haven and London, 1970), 40–43.

From Lyell's journal, quoted in Lyell (ed.), LLJ (ref. 6), ii, 289–90.

Smith , “Geologists and mathematicians” (ref. 3), 55; see also Smith , “William Hopkins” (ref. 3).

Hopkins William , “Researches in physical geology”, Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, vi (1835), 1–84; Cannon , “Uniformitarian–catastrophist debate” (ref. 2), 44–46, though Cannon wrongly cites Hopkins's publication as 1838.

Smith , “Geologists and mathematicians” (ref. 3), 54.

Smith Wise , Energy and empire (ref. 3), 554–6; Wilson , Years to 1841 (ref. 6), 454–5.

Hopkins William , “Anniversary address of the President”, Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London, viii (1852), p. lxxiii; quoted in Smith Wise , Energy and empire (ref. 3), 554.

For an account of the culture of Cambridge mathematics — And the pedagogical heritage from Babbage, to Hopkins and Thomson — And the role of private tutors, see Warwick Andrew , Masters of theory: The pursuit of mathematical physics in Victorian Cambridge (Cambridge, forthcoming), particularly chap. 1.

Burchfield Joe , Lord Kelvin and the age of the earth (Chicago, 1975, reprinted 1990), chap. 2; Smith Wise , Energy and empire (ref. 3), chap. 16, particularly pp. 561–73.

Thomson William , “On the use of observations of terrestrial temperature for the investigation of absolute dates in geology”, BAAS Report, xxv (1855), 18–19; Smith Wise , Energy and empire (ref. 3), 560 for Forbes, 566–7 for attack on Lyell. See also Forbes James D. , “Account of some experiments on the temperature of the earth at different depths, and in different solids, near Edinburgh”, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, xvi (1849), 189–236, for his collaboration with Alexander Adie in recording the earth's temperature at different depths by inserting thermometers as long as twenty-four feet into the ground at ‘experimental gardens’ and areas around Scotland.

See, for example, Smith Wise , Energy and empire (ref. 3), 153; Ashworth , “Memory” (ref. 63); Warwick , “The laboratory of theory” (ref. 5); Schaffer Simon , “Babbage's intelligence: Calculating engines and the factory system”, Critical inquiry, xxi (1994), 203–27.