A Plea for Applied Geology

Ransome Frederick Leslie , “The present standing of applied geology”, Economic geology, i (1905), 1–10, p. 3.

Graton L. C. , “Ore deposits”, in Geology, 1888–1938: Fiftieth anniversary volume (Geological Society of America, New York, 1941), 471–509, p. 507.

Ransome , “Applied geology” (ref. 1), 1.

In 1893, the journal Zeitschrift für Praktische Geologie was established in Germany with a strong international editorial board.

Hamm E. P. , “Knowledge from underground: Leibniz mines the Enlightenment”, Earth sciences history, xvi (1997), 77–99, p. 82.

Barnes Barry , “The science-technology relationship: A model and a query”, Social studies of science, xii (1982), 166–71.

Layton Edwin T. Jr , “Through the looking-glass, or News from Lake Mirror image”, Technology and culture, xxviii (1987), 594–607. The best discussion of the science-technology relation is still Staudenmaier John M. , Technology's storytellers: Reweaving the human fabric (Cambridge, Mass, 1985), ch. 3.

Layton , “Through the looking-glass” (ref. 7), fn 8, pp. 598–600.

Crosbie Smith and M. Norton Wise have convincingly and elegantly shown the unity of theory and practice in the life and work of the British physicist William Thomson; see their Energy & empire: A biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge, 1989).

Gough J. B. , “Winecraft and chemistry in 18th-century France: Chaptal and the invention of chaptalization”, Technology and culture, xxxix (1998), 74–104, p. 78. Ransome would agree, “The economic geologist of the present day occupies a domain which cannot easily be definitely marked off from that of the general geologist on the one hand and that of the mining engineer on the other” ( Ransome , “Applied geology” (ref. 1), 2).

Collision zone might be an overly active metaphor. Peter L. Galison has introduced the idea of a trading zone to describe the interactions of various subcultures, in his case within twentieth-century American physics; see Galison , Image and logic: A material culture of microphysics (Chicago and London, 1997).

Laudan Rachel , From mineralogy to geology: The foundations of a science, 1650–1830 (Chicago, 1987), 224–5.

The finest cultural studies remain histories of British geology; see, for example, Secord James A. , Controversy in Victorian geology: The Cambrian-Silurian dispute (Princeton, 1986); Rudwick Martin J. S. , The Great Devonian controversy: The shaping of scientific knowledge among gentlemanly specialists (Chicago, 1985); and Rupke Nicolaas , The great chain of history: William Buckland and the English school of geology (1814–1849) (Oxford, 1983).

Porter Roy S. , “The Industrial Revolution and the rise of the science of geology”, in Teich Mikuláš Young Robert (eds), Changing perspectives in the history of science: Essays in honour of Joseph Needham (London, 1973), 320–43.

Some historians of science seem to prefer the discipline of physics as the model for the development of American science. As a result, little worthwhile happened in the nineteenth century (in terms of theory), and American science becomes significant only in the first decades of the twentieth. In Kevles Daniel J. , The physicists: The history of a scientific community in modern America (reprinted Cambridge, Mass., 1995) less than one-fifth of the book deals with the nineteenth century. See also Reingold Nathan , “American indifference to basic research: A reappraisal”, in Daniels George H. (ed.), Nineteenth-century American science: A reappraisal (Evanston, 1972), 38–62; and Servos John , “Mathematics and the physical sciences in America, 1800–1930”, Isis, lxxvii (1986), 611–29.

More than ten years ago Mott Greene blasted the American history of science community for ignoring the science of geology. Greene Mott T. , “History of geology”, Osiris, 2nd series, i (1985), 97–116. Since then some good biographical work has been done, for example: Gerstner Patsy , Henry Darwin Rogers, 1808–1866: American geologist (Tuscaloosa, 1994); Livingston David N. , Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and the culture of American science (Tuscaloosa, 1994); and Champlin Peggy , Raphael Pumpelly: Gentleman geologist of the Gilded Age (Tuscaloosa, 1994). But in general, the neglect explains, to a great degree, why American contributions are absent from general histories of geology. A recent example is Gohau Gabriel , A history of geology (New Brunswick, 1996). The exception is Oldroyd David , Thinking about the earth: A history of ideas in geology (London, 1996) which does, comparatively speaking, have a good discussion of American geology.

One could easily begin a review with the work of Georgius Agricola. Frank Dawson Adams began with Aristotle; see Adams , The birth and development of the geological sciences (reprinted New York, 1954), ch. 9.

Laudan , From mineralogy to geology (ref. 12), ch. 5; Ospovat Alexander M. , “Introduction”, in Werner A. G. , Short classification and description of the various rocks (New York, 1971); idem, “Reflections on A. G. Werner's ‘Kurze Klassification’”, in Schneer Cecil (ed.), Toward a history of geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 242–56; idem, “The place of the Kurze Klassification in the work of A. G. Werner”, Isis, lviii (1967), 90–95; and Eyles V. A. , “Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817) and his position in the history of the mineralogical and geological sciences”, History of science, iii (1964), 102–15.

Hugh Torrens has questioned the reputed usefulness of Werner's theories and methods; see Torrens , “Geology in peace time: An English visit to study German mineralogy and geology (and visit Goethe, Werner and Raumer)”, Toward a history of mineralogy, petrology, and geochemistry , ed. by Fritscher Bernhard Henderson Fergus (Algorismus, xxiii (Munich, 1998)), 147–75.

For a review of the literature see Lucier Paul , “Science, technology, and the Industrial Revolution”, in Rider Christine Thompson Míchéal (eds), The Industrial Revolution in comparative perspective (Malabar, Fl., forthcoming); and Jacob Margaret C. , Scientific culture and the making of the industrial West (New York, 1997).

Guntau Martin , “The emergence of geology as a scientific discipline”, History of science, xvi (1978), 280–90, p. 281. See also Porter Theodore M. , “The promotion of mining and the advancement of science: The Chemical Revolution and mineralogy”, Annals of science, xxxviii (1981), 543–70.

E. P. Hamm ascribed this drop in interest in mining to the emergence of Romanticism in German-speaking lands. I think this explanation is open to further investigation. Hamm , “Knowledge from underground” (ref. 5), 93–95.

Karl Alfred von Zittel, for example, in his discussion of the fourth period in the development of geology, roughly after 1820, identified universities and surveys as the key institutions, but even he omitted mining academies. Zittel , History of geology and paleontology, transl. by Ogilvie-Gordon Maria M. (London, 1901).

Recent work in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German science has been attuned to this issue of research institutions (university and non-university) and the inter-relations of science, industry, and the government; see, for example, Olesko Kathryn M. , Physics as a calling: Discipline and practice in the Königsberg Seminar for Physics (Ithaca, 1991); Cahan David , An institute for an empire: The Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, 1871–1918 (Cambridge and New York, 1989); and Johnson Jeffrey Allan , The Kaiser's chemists: Science and modernization in Imperial Germany (Chapel Hill and London, 1990).

According to one observer, about one-fourth of the students at Freiberg were Americans who contributed roughly half of the academy's revenue. Church John A. , “Mining schools in the United States”, North American review, cxii (1871), 62–81.

Columbia School of Mines graduated nearly half of the mining engineers in the United States in second half of the nineteenth century. See Spence Clark C. , Mining engineers & the American West: The lace-boot brigade, 1849–1933 (New Haven and London, 1970), 40.

There were, of course, earlier examples of mapping projects. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Jean-Étienne Guettard's mineralogical surveys of France successfully combined commercial and scientific interests under government auspices. Rappaport Rhoda , “The Geological Atlas of Guettard, Lavoisier, and Monnet: Conflicting views of the nature of geology”, in Schneer (ed.), Toward a history of geology (ref. 18), 272–87; and Taylor Kenneth L. , “Early geoscience mapping, 1700–1830”, Proceedings of the Geoscience Information Society, xv (1985), 15–49.

After completion of the general survey, Élie de Beaumont became General Inspector of Mines and continued to conduct special geological surveys of mining districts. Zittel , History of geology and paleontology (ref. 23), 150, 299.

Turner Stephen P. , “The survey in nineteenth-century American geology: The evolution of a form of patronage”, Minerva, xxv (1987), 282–330, and Secord James A. , “The Geological Survey of Great Britain as a research school, 1839–1855”, History of science, xxiv (1986), 223–75.

Secord referred to this assumption as the constraint of professional science, ibid, 223. David Oldroyd discussed the “mapping mentality”; see Oldroyd , Thinking about the earth (ref. 16), 123–30.

For Britain, see Bailey Edward , Geological Survey of Great Britain (London, 1952); and Flett John Smith , The first hundred years of the Geological Survey of Great Britain (London, 1937). For the United States, see the four volumes of Rabbit Mary C. , Minerals, lands, and geology for the common defense and general welfare (Washington, D.C., 1979–86). On Canada, see Zaslow Morris , Reading the rocks: The story of the Geological Survey of Canada, 1842–1972 (Toronto, 1975). For additional discussion of Canada, see Zeller Suzanne , Inventing Canada: Early Victorian science and the idea of a transnational nation (Toronto, 1987); and Eagan William E. , “The Canadian Geological Survey: Hinterland between two metropolises”, Earth science history, xii (1993), 99–106.

Secord , op. cit. (ref. 29), and Porter Roy , “Gentlemen and geology: The emergence of a scientific career, 1660–1920”, The historical journal, xxi (1978), 809–36.

Robert A. Stafford remarked that Murchison's goals have been “misunderstood” by historians. Stafford, Scientist of empire: Sir Roderick Murchison, scientific exploration and Victorian imperialism (Cambridge, 1989), 199.

In the 1850s and 1860s the Survey mapped the coalfields of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, and Cumberland. Under Ramsay, attention focused on Scottish coalfields, beginning with Midlothian.

Flett , The first hundred years (ref. 31), 144.

Geikie was criticized for devoting too much time to the theoretically significant but economically unimportant northwest region of Scotland. Oldroyd David R. , The Highlands Controversy: Constructing geological knowledge through fieldwork in nineteenth-century Britain (Chicago and London, 1990).

Stafford , Scientist of empire (ref. 33). On India see Grout Andrew , “Geology and India, 1775–1805: An episode in colonial science”, South Asia research, x (1990), 1–18. On Australia see Johns R. K. , History and role of Government geological surveys in Australia (Adelaide, 1976). There is also very good work on Ireland; see Herries-Davies G. L. , Sheets of many colours: The mapping of Irish rocks, 1750–1890 (Dublin, 1983), and North from the Hook: 150 years of the Geological Survey of Ireland (Dublin, 1995).

Logan's mapping skills attracted the attention of De la Beche, who hired him when the British Survey entered South Wales in 1837.

Stafford , Scientist of empire (ref. 33), 200.

The principal study of American geological surveys, and of nineteenth-century American geology in general, remains Merrill George P. , The first one hundred years of American geology (New Haven, 1924). Merrill also published something of a source book comprising government documents and geologists' accounts in Contributions to a history of American state geological and natural history surveys (Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum, Bulletin 109; Washington, D.C., 1920).

Historians have not failed to explain in general terms the political economy of government surveys. See, for example, Slotten Hugh Richard , Patronage, practice, and the culture of American science: Alexander Dallas Bache and the US Coast Survey (Cambridge, 1994); Miller Howard S. , Dollars for research: Science and its patrons in nineteenth-century America (Seattle, 1970); and Hendrickson Walter B. , “Nineteenth-century state geological surveys: Early Government support of science”, Isis, lii (1961), 357–71.

Edward Hitchcock, the director of the first geological survey of Massachusetts and the first state geologist to publish his results, might be credited with setting the pattern. He divided his report into two halves: The first on “Economical” geology and the second entitled “Scientific”. Hitchcock , Final report on the geology of Massachusetts (2 vols, Northhampton, Mass., 1841).

Geology is central to the long-standing debate on the style of American science. See, for example, Shryock Richard H. , “American indifference to basic science during the nineteenth century”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xxviii (1948), 3–18; and Reingold , op. cit. (ref. 15).

Aldrich Michele L. , “American state geological surveys, 1820–1845” and Jordan William M. , “Geology and the industrial revolution in early to mid nineteenth century Pennsylvania”, in Schneer Cecil J. (ed.), Two hundred years of geology in America (Hanover, N.H., 1979), 91–103 and 133–43 respectively.

Aldrich Michele L. Leviton Alan E. , “William Barton Rogers and the Virginia Geological Survey, 1835–1842”, in Corgan James X. (ed.), The geological sciences in the Antebellum South (Tuscaloosa, 1982), 83–104; and Milici R. C. Hobbs C. R. B. , “William Barton Rogers and the first Geological Survey of Virginia, 1835–1841”, Earth sciences history, vi (1987), 3–13.

Aldrich , “American state geological surveys” (ref. 44).

Rogers did publish six annual reports from 1836 to 1842 ranging from 100 to 250 pages. Rogers Henry D. , The geology of Pennsylvania (2 vols, Philadelphia, 1858).

Merrill , Contributions (ref. 40), esp. 390–7.

Whitney became the Sturgiss-Hooper Professor of Geology in the School of Mines and Practical Geology. Raphael Pumpelly was the Professor of Mining. The School was established 1865 and terminated, for lack of students, in 1875. Nash Gerald D. , “The conflict between pure and applied science in nineteenth-century public policy: The California Geological Survey, 1860–1874”, Isis, liv (1963), 174–85; and Champlin , Raphael Pumpelly (ref. 16).

Other state surveys, principally Pennsylvania and Virginia, developed stratigraphic nomenclature systems, but these were not adopted by other geologists. Gerstner Patsy A. , “Henry Darwin Rogers and William Barton Rogers on the nomenclature of the American paleozoic rocks”, in Schneer (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 44), 175–86.

The General Land Office, a branch of the Department of Interior, commissioned geologists to examine public lands. Those designated as agricultural could be bought, whereas mineral lands could only be leased. David Dale Owen surveyed territory in Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin, roughly 11,000 square miles, in 1839, and between 1848 and 1850, Owen covered the Chippewa Land District (western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota). In 1847, Charles T. Jackson began a study of the Lake Superior Land District (Michigan), but because of conflict with copper mining interests, Jackson was removed and John Wells Foster and Josiah Dwight Whitney completed the survey in 1850.

The surveys were published by the War Department, under Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, in thirteen massive volumes entitled Pacific railroad reports. Certainly the time has come to reevaluate William H. Goetzmann's devastating dismissal of the science found in these reports as “non-accumulative. That is, it led nowhere”. Goetzmann , Exploration and empire: The explorer and the scientist in the winning of the American West (New York, 1966), 330.

This was the only explicitly military operation; however, civilian scientists were attached to the survey. On relations between the military and civilians see Goetzmann , Exploration and empire (ref. 52).

Hague James D. (with geological contributions by Clarence King), Mining industry, iii: Report of the U.S. Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel (Washington, D.C., 1870).

Rabbit Mary C. , Minerals, lands, and geology for the common defense and general welfare, i: Before 1879 (Washington, D.C., 1979); Manning Thomas G. , Government in science: The U.S. Geological Survey, 1867–1894 (Lexington, 1967); and Wilkins Thurman , Clarence King: A biography (New York, 1958).

Besides directing the USGS, King took part in the Tenth Census of the United States, which undertook a systematic review of mineral resources. The massive volumes on precious metals, iron ores, and petroleum are a treasure trove of economic geology waiting to be mined.

Walcott's research program on metals, particularly gold, production of which had declined precipitously throughout the 1880s, was impressive and won for the USGS Congressional recognition and continued support. Studies of gold deposits in Colorado (1893–94), Utah (1894), and Alaska (1895, a year before the rush) as well as the cyanidation process for reducing the ores resolved the US gold crisis by 1900. In addition, the USGS began detailed studies of copper mining in Montana (1896) and Utah (1897). In 1893, the USGS undertook the study of aluminum ores in Georgia and Alabama, and in 1900 those in Arkansas. See Rabbit Mary C. , Minerals, lands, and geology for the common defense and general welfare, iii: 1904–1939 (Washington, D.C., 1979), ch. 1, for a summary of the USGS's economic geology.

Rabbit , ibid.; cf. Manning , Government in science (ref. 55).

As many scholars have noted, the scientific contributions of the USGS were of the first order. Dott R. H. Jr , “The American countercurrent — Eastward flow of geologists and their ideas in the late nineteenth century”, Earth sciences history, ix(1990), 158–62; Pyne Stephen J. , Grove Karl Gilbert: A great engine of research (Austin, 1980); and Servos John W. , “The intellectual basis of specialization: Geochemistry in America, 1890–1915”, in Parascandola John Whorton James C. (eds), Chemistry in modern society: Historical essays in honor of Aaron J. Ihde (Washington, D.C., 1983), 1–19.

Ransome , “Applied geology” (ref. 1), 6. Another economic geologist, James Furman Kemp, went even further in his praise of the USGS: “The geologists of the United States Geological Survey, who have been engaged in the study of our great mining regions, especially in the West, have laid the whole scientific world under debt of gratitude, and in this country have probably been the most potent influences toward the right geological conceptions regarding ores.” Kemp J. F. , The ore deposits of the United States and Canada (New York, 1906), p. vi.

Rachel Laudan has even argued that gentlemen of the Geological Society, in contrast to practical men, hindered the development of geology in the early years of the nineteenth century. Laudan , “Ideas and organizations in British geology: A case study in institutional history”, Isis, lxviii (1977), 527–38.

Torrens H. S. , “Patronage and problems: Banks and the earth sciences”, in Banks R. E. R. (eds), Sir Joseph Banks: A global perspective (London, 1994), 49–75; idem, “Arthur Aikin's mineralogical survey of Shropshire 1796–1816 and the contemporary audience for geological publications”, The British journal for the history of science, xvi (1983), 111–53; and Burt Roger , John Taylor: Mining entrepreneur and engineer, 1779–1863 (London, 1977).

William Smith's contributions are well-known and discussed by many historians. See, for example, Torrens Hugh S. , “Le ‘Nouvel Art de Prospection Minière’ de William Smith et le ‘Projet de Houillère de Breham’: Un essai malencontreux de recherche de charbon dans le Sud-Ouest de l'Angleterre, entre 1803 et 1810”, in Livre jubilaire pour François Ellenberger (Paris, 1998), 101–18; and Eyles Joan M. , “William Smith: Some aspects of his life and works”, in Schneer (ed.), Toward a history of geology (ref. 18), 142–58.

Rudwick argued for the central role of Alexandre Brongniart and Georges Cuvier in the emergence of stratigraphical or geohistorical geology; see Rudwick , “Minerals, strata and fossils”, in Jardine N. Secord J. A. Spary E. C. (eds), Cultures of natural history (Cambridge, 1996); and idem, “Cuvier and Brongniart, William Smith, and the reconstruction of geohistory”, Earth sciences history, xv (1996), 25–36.

The exception is Hugh Torrens who has done a great deal of biographical work on eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century mineral prospectors; see, for example, his “Joseph Harrison Fryer (1777–1855): Geologist and mining engineer, in England 1803–1825 and South America 1826–1828. A study in failure”, in de Mendonça Figueirôa Silvia Fernanda Lopes Maria Margaret (eds), Geological sciences in Latin America: Scientific relations and exchanges (Campinas, SP, Brazil, 1994), 29–46.

Morrell Jack , “Economic and ornamental geology: The Geological and Polytechnic Society of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1837–53”, in Inkster Ian Morrell Jack (eds), Metropolis and province: Science in British culture 1780–1850 (Philadelphia, 1983), 231–56, p. 233. See, also, Porter Roy , The making of geology: Earth science in Britain, 1660–1815 (Cambridge, 1977); idem, “Gentlemen and geology” (ref. 32); and O'Connor Jean G. Meadows A. J. , “Specialization and professionalization in British geology”, Social studies of science, vi (1976), 77–89.

Secord made this point with respect to Charles Lyell's attempt to make geology a science by making it respectable. See Lyell Charles , Principles of geology, edited with an introduction by Secord James A. (London, 1997), p. xvi.

Morrell, for instance, noted in passing that the English geologist John Phillips surveyed the Ingleton area of Yorkshire for coal as a commission; see Morrell , “Economic and ornamental geology” (ref. 66), 232–4. Phillips John , A report on the probability of the occurrence of coal and other minerals in the vicinity of Lancaster. Addressed to the Lancaster Mining Company (Lancaster, 1837).

Lucier Paul , “Commercial interests and scientific disinterestedness: Consulting geologists in Antebellum America”, Isis, lxxxvi (1995), 245–67.

Lucier Paul , Scientists and swindlers: Coal, oil, and commercial consulting in America, 1820–1890 (Baltimore, forthcoming); and White Gerald , Scientists in conflict: The beginnings of the oil industry in California (San Marino, Calif., 1968).

Hannaway Owen , “The German model of chemical education in America: Ira Remsen at Johns Hopkins (1876–1913)”, Ambix, xxiii (1976), 145–64; Daniels George H. , “The pure science ideal and democratic culture”, Science, xv (1967), 699–1705; and Rowland Henry , “Plea for pure science”, Science, xxix (1883), 242–50.

Ransome , “Applied geology” (ref. 1), 2.

Ibid., 4.

Taylor Frank J. , Black bonanza: How an oil hunt grew into the Union Oil Company of California (New York, 1950); White Gerald T. , Formative years in the Far West: A history of Standard Oil Company of California and predecessors through 1919 (New York, 1962).

The three minerals roughly correspond to three different types of occurrence: As strata or beds, veins, and liquid and gases. Iron occurred in bedded sedimentary strata and in veins — In other words, sometimes in the manner of coal and other times like ore deposits. It has been excluded here only because its general geology might be subsumed within the other two broad categories. This tripartite division was also adopted by the Geological Society of America; see The geology of North America, vol. P-2: Economic geology, U.S., ed. by Gluskoter H. J. Rice D. D. Taylor R. B. (Boulder, 1991). Of course, one could choose other examples of the mutual relationship of practical and scientific geology; see Jordan William M. , “Application as stimulus in geology: Some examples from the early years of the Geological Society of America”, in Geologists and ideas: A history of North American geology, ed. by Drake Ellen T. Jordan William M. (Boulder, 1985), 443–52.

I do not mean to suggest that coal was important only in the nineteenth century or petroleum only in the twentieth. Certainly, research on each of these minerals continued throughout the last two centuries, but I think historians can, and geologists at the time did, prioritize these minerals, and that ranking reflected the economic and social importance of the corresponding industries. See Vallance Tom , “The fuss about coal: Troubled relations between paleobotany and geology”, in Carr D. J. Carr S. G. M. (eds), Plants and animals in Australia (Sydney, 1981), 136–76.

On its continued scientific importance, see Vallance , op. cit. (ref. 76).

As Rudwick and Secord have shown, the limit of stratigraphical knowledge until the 1830s was marked by the Coal Measures, below which the rocks were not clearly identifiable by characteristic fossils. Above the Coal Measures, the rocks contained ample fossil evidence to order the units structurally and chronologically, and to map them, as William Smith showed. Rudwick , Great Devonian Controversy (ref. 13); and Secord , Controversy in Victorian geology (ref. 13). Charles Lyell recognized the importance of coal for global correlations and took a keen interest in it, especially the massive deposits of Pennsylvania and Nova Scotia, during his visits to America. A study of Lyell's role in the debates over coal would be a valuable contribution to the history of geology. Lyell Charles , Travels in North America, in the years 1841–2: With geological observations on the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia (New York, 1845); idem, A second visit to the United States of North America (2 vols, New York, 1849); Skinner Hubert C. (ed.), Charles Lyell on North American geology (Albany, N.Y., 1929); Silliman Robert H. , “The Hamlet affair: Charles Lyell and the North Americans”, Isis, lxxxvi (1995), 541–61; and Dott Robert H. Jr , “Lyell in America — His lectures, field work, and mutual influences, 1841–1853”, Earth sciences history, xv (1996), 101–40. I am aware that Leonard Wilson has recently published a sequel to his first study of Charles Lyell which should address some of these issues. See his Lyell in America: Transatlantic geology, 1841–1853 (Baltimore and London, 1998). It is unfortunate that I was unable to consult this book before this article went to press.

Lucier , Scientists and swindlers (ref. 70), ch. 3; and Greene Mott T. , Geology in the nineteenth century: Changing views of a changing world (Ithaca and London, 1982), ch. 5.

Of course, these three “types” do not exhaust the possible varieties of coal. There was every gradation between graphite and asphaltum, as well as some types of bituminous substances that did not seem to fit a linear system, such as petroleum. Classification of types produced an extended and at times heated debate. See Lucier Paul , “Court and controversy: Patenting science in the nineteenth century”, The British journal of the history of science, xxix (1996), 139–54. Chandler Alfred D. Jr , “Anthracite coal and the beginnings of the industrial revolution in the United States”, Business history review, xlvi (1972), 143–81.

Rogers H. D. Bache Alexander Dallas , “Analysis of some coals of Pennsylvania”, Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vii/1 (1834), 158–77.

De la Beche Henry Playfair Lyon , First, second, and third Reports on the Coals Suited to the Steam Navy. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty (London, 1848–51).

Rogers and Lesley divided the anthracite fields as follows: A northern basin (running from Wilkesbarre to Scranton to Carbondale), a middle basin (centred on Hazelton), an eastern basin (Shamokin and Mahanoy), and a southern basin (Broad Mountain, Mauch Chunk and Pottsville). These divisions reflected the principal mining regions. On anthracite mining and the role of geology, see Wallace Anthony F. C. , St. Clair: A nineteenth-century coal town's experience with a disaster-prone industry (Ithaca, 1988).

Rogers William B. , “On the age of the coal rocks of Eastern Virginia”, Rogers Henry D. , “An inquiry into the origin of the Appalachian coal strata, bituminous and anthracitic”, and Rogers B.W. Rogers H. D. , “On the physical structure of the Appalachian chain, as exemplifying the laws which have regulated the elevation of great mountain chains, generally”, in Reports of the first, second, and third Meetings of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists at Philadelphia, in 1840 and 1841, and at Boston in 1842 (reprinted New York, 1978), 298–316, 433–74 and 474–531 respectively. The term used today for describing the process of forming coal is, aptly, ‘coalification’. See McCabe Peter J. , “Geology of coal: Environments of deposition”, and Damberger Heinz H. , “Coalification in North American coal fields”, in Gluskoter Rice Taylor (eds), The geology of North America, vol. P-2 (ref. 75), 469–82 and 503–22, respectively.

Rogers Henry Darwin , The geology of Pennsylvania (2 vols, Philadelphia, 1858); Gerstner Patsy A. , “A dynamic theory of mountain building: Henry Darwin Rogers, 1842”, Isis, lxvi (1975), 26–37; and idem, Henry Darwin Rogers, 1808–1866: American geologist (Tuscaloosa, 1994).

Werner A. G. , Neue Theorie von der Entstehung der Gänge, mit Anwendung auf den Bergbau (Freiberg, 1791); subsequently translated as New theory of the formation of veins; with its application to the art of working mines (Edinburgh, 1809). Hallam A. , Great geological controversies, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1989), ch. 1; and Nieuwenkamp W. , “Trends in nineteenth century petrology”, Janus, lxii (1975), 235–69.

Breithaupt J. , Die Paragenesis der Mineralien (Freiberg, 1849).

The next major work in English was Phillips J. Arthur , A treatise on ore deposits (London, 1884). On American mining there was Whitney I. D. , The metallic wealth of the United States (Philadelphia, 1854), but it was more descriptive and statistical than von Cotta's work.

Cited in Champlin , Raphael Pumpelly (ref. 16), 123.

Becker George F. , “Biographical notice of Samuel Franklin Emmons”, in Ore-deposits, ed. by Emmons Samuel Franklin (New York, 1913), pp. xxix–xlvii, on p. xl.

By the 1860s and 1870s, other British geologists, including David Forbes, Clifton Ward and Frank Rutley, began using the method. See Hamilton Beryl M. , “The influence of the polarizing microscope on late nineteenth century geology”, Janus, lxix (1982), 51–68.

According to Carl-Henry Geschwind, Zirkel's and Rosenbusch's work was pursued “mostly for its own sake”, presumably without regard to practical problems or questions from mining interests. Geschwind , “The beginnings of microscopic petrography in the United States, 1870–1885”, Earth sciences history, xiii (1994), 35–46, p. 35. Mahler Julianne P. Pfefferkorn Hermann W. , “The influence of the University of Heidelberg on the development of geology in North America between 1860 and 1913”, Earth sciences history, vii (1988), 33–43.

In Michigan, state geologists concentrated solely on the Upper Peninsula after 1871, because investigations of the Lower Peninsula, in which copper and iron had not been found, “did not seem to promise very important additional results”. Merrill , Contributions (ref. 40), 232.

Thomas Benton Brooks, for example, surveyed the iron-bearing rocks in Michigan and established a stratigraphical series for the Marquette, Menominee, and Penokee districts that could aid miners in exploration. For more on Brooks's work, see Geschwind , “The beginnings of microscopic petrography in the United States” (ref. 92).

Pumpelly R. , “The paragenesis and derivation of copper and its associates on Lake Superior”, American journal of science, ii (1871), 428–32; and “Copper-bearing rocks”, in Geological survey of Michigan, Upper Peninsula, 1869–1873 (2 vols, New York, 1873). In his approach Pumpelly followed the work of his teacher Breithaupt. For a clear explanation of Pumpelly's geology see Champlin , Raphael Pumpelly (ref. 16).

Pumpelly R. , “Metasomatic development of the copper-bearing rocks of Lake Superior”, Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, xiii (1878), 253–309.

Pumpelly later studied the classification, geographical and geological distribution, manner of occurrence, and the chemical character of different varieties of iron ores for the Tenth Census of the United States. Pumpelly R. , Report on the mining industries of the United States (exclusive of the precious metals) (U.S. Tenth Census, xv; Washington, D.C., 1886).

Discovered in 1859, the mines were the deepest and hottest of any in North America. By the time Becker began his survey, however, the district was declining. Becker George F. , Geology of the Comstock Lode and Washoe District (Monographs of the U.S. Geological Survey, iii; Washington, D.C., 1882).

Silver-lead ore had been discovered in 1864, but profitable mining did not begin until 1869. For fifteen years afterwards the Eureka district was in its prime. The Eureka district was also the focus of a number of important and heated court cases between the Eureka and Richmond mining companies. Argued in July 1877 before the US Supreme Court, the case addressed the question of whether the deposits found in the limestone constituted a “lode” by definition of the western mining laws. Hague Arnold , Geology of the Eureka District, Nevada (Monographs of the U.S. Geological Survey, xx; Washington, D.C., 1892).

Iddings Joseph P. , Micrsoscopical petrography of the eruptive rocks of the Eureka District, Nevada (Monographs of the U.S. Geological Survey, xx; Washington, D.C., 1892), 335–96. Servos , “The intellectual basis of specialization” (ref. 59).

Cross was later instrumental in persuading the Carnegie Institution of Washington to establish a Geophysical Laboratory for the experimental investigation of rocks at high temperatures and pressures. Geschwind , “The beginnings of microscopic petrography in the United States” (ref. 92). For more on the Geophysical Laboratory, see Geschwind Carl-Henry , “Becoming interested in experiments: American igneous petrologists and the Geophysical Laboratory, 1905–1965”, Earth sciences history, xiv (1995), 47–61; and Servos John , “To explore the borderland: The foundation of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, xiv (1983), 147–85.

Leadville was a new silver-lead district. Discovered in 1874, it marked the beginning of the Colorado era of western mining. In the 1890s, Emmons worked on the copper deposits of Butte, Montana, where he added to his ideas on lateral secretion with a theory of secondary enrichment, a chemical process in which pyrites were replaced by sulphides of other metals, especially copper. Emmons S. F. , Geology and mining industry of Leadville, Colorado (Monographs of the U.S. Geological Survey, xii; Washington, D.C., 1886).

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Van Hise did not have the benefit of a German education. He learned his geology in the field as an assistant on the Wisconsin state survey and later with the USGS where he rose to the position of geologist-in-charge of the Lake Superior region (1888–1900) and then chief of the Division of PreCambrian and Metamorphic Geology. For more on Van Hise's chemical geology see Servos , “The intellectual basis of specialization” (ref. 59).

Lindgren was a graduate of Freiberg, who had begun his career as an assistant to Raphael Pumpelly on the Northern Transcontinental Survey, a railroad survey between 1881 and 1884 primarily interested in locating coal. Lindgren then started fieldwork in the western mining districts for the USGS. In 1905 he became head of the USGS section on mineral resources and in 1908 chief geologist of the Division of Metalliferous Geology. From 1912 to 1933, Lindgren was the professor of economic geology at MIT. James F. Kemp, W. H. Weed and J. E. Spurr were among the other leading economic geologists who challenged Emmons and Van Hise. For a thought-provoking explanation of the different theories and their proponents, see Lundgren Anders , “Attitudes towards natural resources: Geologists and mining engineers 1850–1900”, paper delivered at the XVIth International Congress on the History of Science, Bucharest, 1981.

The presence of water in magmas was essential to understanding ore deposits; and this was a principal reason for why the initial work of the Carnegie Institute on ‘dry’ magmas was not well received. Geschwind , “Becoming interested in experiments” (ref. 101).

There is much debate about America's and the world's “first” oil well. Certainly petroleum was found in other parts of the world, and it had been used for centuries for various purposes. Lucier Paul , “Petroleum: What is it good for?”, American heritage of invention and technology, vii (1991), 56–63; Forbes R. J. , Studies in early petroleum history (Leiden, 1958); idem, More studies in early petroleum history (Leiden, 1959); Miller Ernest C. , An investigation of North America's first oil well: Who drilled it? (Rutland, Vt., 1964); and Giddens Paul , The birth of the oil industry (New York, 1938).

The standard history of the industry is still Williamson Harold F. Daum Arnold R. , The American petroleum industry: The Age of Illumination, 1859–1899 (Evanston, 1959); and Williamson Harold F. Andreano Ralph L. Daum Arnold R. Klose Gilbert C. , The American petroleum industry: The Age of Energy, 1899–1959 (Evanston, 1963).

The definitive history of petroleum geology is Owen Edgar Wesley , Trek of the oil finders: A history of the exploration for petroleum (Tulsa, Okla., 1975).

The budget of the second Pennsylvania state survey (1874–88) amounted to roughly $643,000 and 87 persons (geologists, draughtsmen, mineralogists, chemists, palaeontologists, and various assistants) were employed at one time or another. Merrill , Contributions (ref. 40), 444–5, 537–8.

Lesley J. Peter , “Pennsylvania”, in Merrill George P. (ed.), Contributions to a history of American state geological and natural history surveys (Washington, D.C., 1920), 428–56.

The Director of the British Geological Survey, Archibald Geikie, noted that Lesley was the originator and master of what he called “topographical geology”: Geikie , “Anniversary address”, Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London, lx (1904), pp. xlix–lv.

The best evidence for this came from the second Ohio survey under the direction of Edward Orton, who is often given credit for establishing the anticlinal theory. There was very stubborn opposition to this theory from Lesley and the Pennsylvania survey. Miller Keith L. , “Edward Orton: Pioneer in petroleum geology”, Earth sciences history, xii (1993), 54–59; Galey John T. , “The anticlinal theory of oil and gas accumulation: Its role in the inception of the natural gas and modern oil industries”, in Drake Ellen T. Jordan William M. (eds), Geologists and ideas: A history of North American geology (Boulder, 1985), 423–42; and Peckham Stephen F. , Report on the production, technology, and uses of petroleum and its products, x: U.S. Tenth Census (U.S. Congress 2nd Session, H.R. Misc. Doc. 42; Washington, D.C., 1884).

For a clear discussion of the chemistry of petroleum and its relation to refining see Peckham , Report on the production, technology, and uses of petroleum and its products (ref. 112).

Berthelot M. , “Sur l'origine des carbures et des combustibles minéraux”, Annales de chimie et de physique, ix (1866), 481–3.

Lucier , Scientists and swindlers (ref. 70), ch. 9; and Owen , Trek of the oil finders (ref. 108), esp. 1395–7; cf. Cole Simon A. , “Which came first, the fossil or the fuel?”, Social studies of science, xxvi (1996), 733–66.

Some economic geologists worked for mining companies in the early twentieth century. The first company to establish a geology department was the Anaconda company of Butte, Montana; in 1906 R. H. Sales became their chief geologist and director of what became known as the “Anaconda school”. See Graton L. C. , “Seventy-five years of progress in mining geology”, in Parsons A. B. (ed.), Seventy-five years of progress in the mineral industry, 1871–1946 (New York, 1947), 1–39, esp. 14–17.

The years 1925–29 marked a period of “explosive expansion” and “brilliant development” according to one of the pre-eminent geophysicists of the time; see Barton Donald C. , “Exploratory geophysics”, in Geology, 1888–1938 (ref. 2), 549–69, esp. 563ff.

Michael Aaron Dennis referred to this as the occupational style of petroleum geologists; see Dennis , “Drilling for dollars: The making of US petroleum reserve estimates, 1921–25”, Social studies of science, xv (1985), 241–65.

Likewise, the Society of Economic Paleontology and Mineralogy was founded in 1926. For a brief history of the geophysical society see the special issue of Geophysics, xlv (1980).

By 1960 the membership had grown to slightly more than 15,000; Owen , Trek of the oil finders (ref. 108), 1570; and Morley Harold T. , A history of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists: First fifty years (Tulsa, 1966).

On the different roles of petroleum geologists and engineers, see Constant Edward W. II , “Science in society: Petroleum engineers and the oil fraternity in Texas, 1925–65”, Social studies of science, xix (1989), 439–72.

Harold F. Williamson and Arnold R. Daum provided perhaps the most ludicrous example when they asserted that geology was “useless” to early petroleum discovery because “basic geological principles were in dispute” as evidenced by Louis Agassiz, who “denied the validity” of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Williamson Daum , The American petroleum industry, 1859–1899 (ref. 107), 90.

Geologists often served as expert witnesses in apex litigation in the western mining regions of the United States. According to U.S. federal law, the discoverer of a mineral vein had the right to exploit it downward to any depth. The difficulty, of course, came in deciding where a vein ended and the next began. Spence , Mining engineers & the American West (ref. 26), 195–230.

The Second Pennsylvania Geological Survey is a good example of this. Lesley J. Peter , “Pennsylvania”, in Contributions , ed. Merrill (ref. 110), 428–56, p. 436. On the Geological Survey of Britain's response to gold rushes in Australia and other colonies see Stafford , Scientist of empire (ref. 33).

On scientific consultants see Lucier , “Commercial interests and scientific disinterestedness” (ref. 69).

According to George Becker, Emmons's Leadville monograph “has been of enormous importance to miners, [and] it has been of material advantage to the Geological Survey as an evidence of what geology can do for industry; and it has set an example to younger geologists of the mode of treatment proper to such a problem”. Becker , “Biographical notice of Samuel Franklin Emmons”, in Ore-deposits (ref. 90), p. xxxvii.

Rickard T. A. , A history of American mining (New York, 1932), 132, 140–1.

Although increasingly companies relied upon continuous technical expertise from mining engineers for efficient exploitation of proved discoveries. Ochs Kathleen H. , “The rise of American mining engineers: A case study of the Colorado School of Mines”, Technology and culture, xxxiii (1992), 278–301.

William Brock has observed that it was in practical settings — He cited American geological surveys — That interdisciplinary studies emerged. Brock has discussed the geochemical work of F. D. Adams (Geological Survey of Canada) and F. W. Clarke (USGS). Brock W. H. , “Chemical geology or geological chemistry?” in Jordanova L. J. Porter Roy S. (eds), Images of the Earth: Essays in the history of the environmental sciences (Chalfont St Giles, 1979), 147–70; cf. Boyle R. W. , “Geochemistry in the Geological Survey of Canada, 1842–1952”, Earth sciences history, xii (1993), 129–41; and Servos , “The intellectual basis of specialization” (ref. 59).

Charles E. Rosenberg's work remains, I think, the clearest and most eloquent explanation of these ideas; see Rosenberg , No other gods: On science and American social thought (Baltimore and London, 1976), esp. chs 8 and 9; and Rosenberg , “Towards the ecology of knowledge: On discipline, context, and history”, in Oleson Alexandra Voss John (eds), The organization of knowledge in modern America, 1860–1920 (Baltimore, 1979), 440–55. For a more recent discussion, especially of the disunity of science, see Galison Peter Stump David J. (eds), The disunity of science: Boundaries, contexts, and power (Stanford, 1996); and Lenoir Timothy , Instituting science: The cultural production of scientific disciplines (Stanford, 1997).

Galison , Image and logic (ref. 11), ch. 9.