Ages in Chaos: James Hutton and the Discovery of Deep Time.(Book review)

Historian, The, September, 2006 by Taylor, Kenneth L.

Ages in Chaos: James Hutton and the Discovery of Deep Time. By Stephen Baxter. (New York, N.Y.: Forge, 2004. Pp. vi, 246. $23.95.)

The Scot James Hutton [1726-1797], author of the remarkable Theory of the Earth [1788, expanded version 1795], is a figure familiar to historians of science. Generations of geologists have been taught that he was the "founder" or "father" of modern geology. At least this heroic portrayal of Hutton is common in the Anglo-American geological world. Continental European scientists and historians usually perceive him on a more modest scale. Among the main justifications for Hutton's exalted place in geology's annals is his strenuous advocacy of what Charles Lyell [1797-1875] called "present causes": the effort to explain terrestrial...