He first toyed with the science during a brief stay in Europe, delving into the small mysteries of its nomenclature at the very time when the numerous schisms that plagued the calling were at their most dramatic. Perhaps no science has ever been caught up in such turmoil. On the one hand, geologists were busily unleashing themselves from centuries of dogmatic interference from the church. The less pious of their number were no longer content to believe unquestioningly in such literal Bible-based teachings as the creation of the earth on a precise October date in 4004 BC, for instance.
