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Essay on the Theory of the Earth
Essay on the Theory of the Earth was the last work of the scientific writer Robert Kerr who translated it from the introductory essay of George Cuvier's four-volume Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupedes. Before its first publication in 1813, the essay was partly expanded by the geologist and natural historian Robert Jameson who wrote a preface and included extensive notes on mineralogy. Using geological evidence as its principal source of enquiry, Cuvier's essay attempts to address the questions of the origins of the human race, the formation of the earth, and the correlation between incomplete fossil remains and existing species of animals. Extremely influential in its own time, the essay remains a source of considerable insight into the early development of geological research, examining issues of continued significance today.
348 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1813
About the author
Georges Cuvier
1,157 books21 followersFrench zoologist Baron Georges Léopold Cuvier developed influential methods of comparative anatomy and applied them to fossil and living animals.
People knew Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier, a naturalist. Cuvier, an instrumental major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century, established the field of paleontology through his work.
People consider work of Cuvier as the foundation of vertebrate paleontology, and he grouped classes into phyla and incorporated species into the classification to expanded Linnaean taxonomy. Cuvier also established well known extinction as a fact; many contemporaries at the time considered this merely controversial speculation. In Essay on the Theory of the Earth (1813), Cuvier proposed that after periodic catastrophic floods, something created new species. In this way, Cuvier most propelled catastrophism in geology in the early 19th century. His study of the strata of the basin of Paris with Alexandre Brongniart established the basic principles of biostratigraphy.
Among other accomplishments, Cuvier established that bones, found in the United States of America, belonged to an extinct elephant that he later named as a mastodon, and people dug a large skeleton in Paraguay of Megatherium, a giant, prehistoric sloth. He also named but discovered not the aquatic reptile Mosasaurus and the pterosaur Pterodactylus and first suggested that reptiles, rather than mammals, dominated the earth in prehistoric times.
He authored Le Règne Animal ( The Animal Kingdom ), his most famous work, in 1817. In 1819, people created him a peer in honor of his scientific contributions. Thereafter, people knew him. He died in Paris during an epidemic of cholera.
Louis Agassiz on the continent and in America, and Richard Owen in England followed Cuvier. People inscribed his name and 71 other names on the Eiffel tower.
People knew Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier, a naturalist. Cuvier, an instrumental major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century, established the field of paleontology through his work.
People consider work of Cuvier as the foundation of vertebrate paleontology, and he grouped classes into phyla and incorporated species into the classification to expanded Linnaean taxonomy. Cuvier also established well known extinction as a fact; many contemporaries at the time considered this merely controversial speculation. In Essay on the Theory of the Earth (1813), Cuvier proposed that after periodic catastrophic floods, something created new species. In this way, Cuvier most propelled catastrophism in geology in the early 19th century. His study of the strata of the basin of Paris with Alexandre Brongniart established the basic principles of biostratigraphy.
Among other accomplishments, Cuvier established that bones, found in the United States of America, belonged to an extinct elephant that he later named as a mastodon, and people dug a large skeleton in Paraguay of Megatherium, a giant, prehistoric sloth. He also named but discovered not the aquatic reptile Mosasaurus and the pterosaur Pterodactylus and first suggested that reptiles, rather than mammals, dominated the earth in prehistoric times.
He authored Le Règne Animal ( The Animal Kingdom ), his most famous work, in 1817. In 1819, people created him a peer in honor of his scientific contributions. Thereafter, people knew him. He died in Paris during an epidemic of cholera.
Louis Agassiz on the continent and in America, and Richard Owen in England followed Cuvier. People inscribed his name and 71 other names on the Eiffel tower.
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September 29, 2024
AN INFLUENTIAL NATURALIST LOOKS AT FOSSILS, AND THE EARTH
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier (1769-1832) was a French naturalist and zoologist, who was instrumental in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils. He also became the most influential proponent of catastrophism in geology in the early nineteenth century.
He explains in the first chapter of this 1813 book, "In this preliminary discourse I shall describe the whole of the results at which the theory of the earth seems to me to have arrived. I shall mention the relations which connect the history of the fossil bones of land animals with these results, and the considerations which render their history peculiarly important. I shall unfold the principles on which is founded the art of ascertaining these bones, or, in other words, of discovering a genus and of distinguishing a species by a single fragment of bone---an art on the certainly of which depends that of the whole work." (Pg. 5)
He strongly asserts of fossils, "The time is past for ignorance to assert that these remains of organized bodies are mere... productions generated in the womb of the earth by its own creative powers. A nice and scrupulous comparison of their forms... and frequently even of their composition, cannot detect the slightest difference between these shells and the shells which still inhabit the sea. They have therefore once lived in the sea, and been deposited by it: the sea consequently must have rested in the places where the deposition has taken place. Hence it is evident that the basin or reservoir containing the sea has undergone some change at least, either in extent, or in situation, or in both." (Pg. 8-9)
He asserts, "Thus we shall seek in vain among the various forces which still operate on the surface of our earth, for causes competent to the production of these revolutions and catastrophes of which its external crust exhibits so many traces: and if we have recourse to the constant external causes with which we have been hitherto acquainted, we shall have no greater success." (Pg. 36-37)
He adds, "[the motions of the earth] are much too limited for the production of those effects which we have stated... they are altogether inadequate to account for catastrophes which must necessarily have been sudden... these assumed slow motions... explain nothing, since no cause acting slowly could possibly have produced sudden effects." (Pg. 37-38)
He observes, "The importance of investigating the relations of extraneous fossils with the strata in which they are contained is quite obvious. It is to them alone that we owe the commencement even of a Theory of the Earth; as, but for them, we could never have even suspected that there had existed any successive epochs in the formation of our earth, and a series of different and consecutive operations in reducing it to its present state. By them alone we are enabled to ascertain, with the utmost certainty, that our earth has not always been covered over by the same external crust... these fossil remains... must have lived upon the surface, before they came to be buried... at a great depth." (Pg. 54-55)
Less presciently, he contends, "animals have certain fixed and natural characters, which resist the effects of every kind of influence, whether proceeding from natural causes or human interference; and we have not the slightest reason to suspect that time has any more effect upon them than climate." (Pg. 122) He adds, "there does not seem to be the smallest foundation for supposing, that ... extraneous fossils ... have ever been the sources of any of our present animals..." (Pg. 125)
He also argues, "we have no reason to doubt of the book of Genesis having been composed by Moses... And, as Moses establishes the event of a universal catastrophe, occasioned by an irruption of the waters, and followed by an almost entire renewal of the human race, and as he has only referred it to an epoch fifteen or sixteen hundred years previous to his own time... it must necessarily have occurred rather less than five thousand years before the present day." (Pg. 147-148) He says of the Flood accounts of other cultures, "all that their books contain respecting the deluge is borrowed from Genesis, and does not contribute any support to its authority." (Pg. 159)
Although obvious superseded by later knowledge in many respects, this book will still be of considerable interest to those studying the history and development of scientific theory.
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier (1769-1832) was a French naturalist and zoologist, who was instrumental in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils. He also became the most influential proponent of catastrophism in geology in the early nineteenth century.
He explains in the first chapter of this 1813 book, "In this preliminary discourse I shall describe the whole of the results at which the theory of the earth seems to me to have arrived. I shall mention the relations which connect the history of the fossil bones of land animals with these results, and the considerations which render their history peculiarly important. I shall unfold the principles on which is founded the art of ascertaining these bones, or, in other words, of discovering a genus and of distinguishing a species by a single fragment of bone---an art on the certainly of which depends that of the whole work." (Pg. 5)
He strongly asserts of fossils, "The time is past for ignorance to assert that these remains of organized bodies are mere... productions generated in the womb of the earth by its own creative powers. A nice and scrupulous comparison of their forms... and frequently even of their composition, cannot detect the slightest difference between these shells and the shells which still inhabit the sea. They have therefore once lived in the sea, and been deposited by it: the sea consequently must have rested in the places where the deposition has taken place. Hence it is evident that the basin or reservoir containing the sea has undergone some change at least, either in extent, or in situation, or in both." (Pg. 8-9)
He asserts, "Thus we shall seek in vain among the various forces which still operate on the surface of our earth, for causes competent to the production of these revolutions and catastrophes of which its external crust exhibits so many traces: and if we have recourse to the constant external causes with which we have been hitherto acquainted, we shall have no greater success." (Pg. 36-37)
He adds, "[the motions of the earth] are much too limited for the production of those effects which we have stated... they are altogether inadequate to account for catastrophes which must necessarily have been sudden... these assumed slow motions... explain nothing, since no cause acting slowly could possibly have produced sudden effects." (Pg. 37-38)
He observes, "The importance of investigating the relations of extraneous fossils with the strata in which they are contained is quite obvious. It is to them alone that we owe the commencement even of a Theory of the Earth; as, but for them, we could never have even suspected that there had existed any successive epochs in the formation of our earth, and a series of different and consecutive operations in reducing it to its present state. By them alone we are enabled to ascertain, with the utmost certainty, that our earth has not always been covered over by the same external crust... these fossil remains... must have lived upon the surface, before they came to be buried... at a great depth." (Pg. 54-55)
Less presciently, he contends, "animals have certain fixed and natural characters, which resist the effects of every kind of influence, whether proceeding from natural causes or human interference; and we have not the slightest reason to suspect that time has any more effect upon them than climate." (Pg. 122) He adds, "there does not seem to be the smallest foundation for supposing, that ... extraneous fossils ... have ever been the sources of any of our present animals..." (Pg. 125)
He also argues, "we have no reason to doubt of the book of Genesis having been composed by Moses... And, as Moses establishes the event of a universal catastrophe, occasioned by an irruption of the waters, and followed by an almost entire renewal of the human race, and as he has only referred it to an epoch fifteen or sixteen hundred years previous to his own time... it must necessarily have occurred rather less than five thousand years before the present day." (Pg. 147-148) He says of the Flood accounts of other cultures, "all that their books contain respecting the deluge is borrowed from Genesis, and does not contribute any support to its authority." (Pg. 159)
Although obvious superseded by later knowledge in many respects, this book will still be of considerable interest to those studying the history and development of scientific theory.
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