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Darwin's search for a theory of the earth: symmetry, simplicity and speculation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Frank H. T. Rhodes  and
Frank H. T. Rhodes
Frank H. T. Rhodes
Affiliation:
Cornell University, 300 Day Hall, Ithaca, New York, 14853–2801, USA.
Frank H. T. Rhodes
Affiliation:
Cornell University, 300 Day Hall, Ithaca, New York, 14853–2801, USA.
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Extract

1990 marked the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's first major scientific theory. The paper, first presented by Darwin to the Geological Society of London on 7 March 1838, was entitled ‘On the Connexion of Certain Volcanic Phenomena and on the Formation of Mountain-Chains and the Effects of Continental Elevations.’ The paper was a remarkable attempt to develop a global tectonic synthesis. It was the culmination of a period of intensive geological activity by Darwin – then twenty-nine – who had returned from the Beagle voyage only eighteen months previously. The present article reviews the development of Darwin's views, their impact upon his contemporaries, their role in shaping his later views on the origin of species, and their significance in scientific theory-making. It draws, in part, on Darwin's unpublished geological notes and jottings. This paper, and the papers by Sandra Herbert and James Secord that accompany it, were delivered at a symposium which I organized at the Geological Society of London on 31 October 1988 to mark the 150th anniversary of the reading of Darwin's paper.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 193 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1991

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References

1 DAR 41, fol. 36, Manuscript collection, Cambridge University Library.

2 Darwin, C., ‘On the connexion of certain volcanic phenomena in South America, and on the formation of mountain chains and volcanos, as the effects of the same power by which continents are elevated’, Transactions of the Geological Society of London, (1840) 2d ser., pt 3, 5: pp. 601–31, 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar text figure.

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7 Ibid., p. 64.

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22 See, for example, his letter to Whewell in Burkhardt, and Smith, , op. cit. (4), pp. 9–10, 50–2, 69.Google Scholar

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36 Rogers, W. B. and Rogers, H. D., ‘On the physical structure of the Appalachian Chain, as exemplifying the laws which have regulated the elevations of great mountain chains, generally’, Contributions to the Geology of the United States, Trans. Assoc. Amer. Geologists and Naturalists, (1843), pp. 474–531.Google Scholar

37 Lyell, C., Principles of Geology, 6th edn, 3 vols., London, 1840.Google Scholar See particularly vol. ii, pp. 449, 461. The prevailing view of Lyell, 's PrinciplesGoogle Scholar as the foundation of contemporary geology (see for example, Bailey, E. B., Sir Charles Lyell, London, 1962Google Scholar, and Wilson, L. A., Charles Lyell: The Years to 1841 – The Revolution in Geology, New Haven, Conn., 1972)Google Scholar has recently been challenged by Lawrence, P., ‘Charles Lyell versus the theory of central heat: a reappraisal of Lyell's place in the history of geology’, J. Hist. Biol. (1978), 11, pp. 101–28Google Scholar and Greene, , op. cit. (34).Google Scholar For a thoughtful analysis see Laudan, , op. cit. (32), pp. 201–21.Google Scholar It is noteworthy that Lyell made two other suggestions, both of which had novel implications. First, in rejecting the original central heat of the earth as an adequate source of heat to cause earthquakes and volcanoes, Lyell reasoned that ‘there must be a circulation of currents, tending to equalize the temperature of the resulting fluids, and the solid crust would be melted’ (Lyell, , op. cit. (37), ii, p. 449).Google Scholar In this he foreshadowed, to some extent, a view of subcrustal flow that was to gain acceptance more than a century later. Second, his demand for an earth in long-term dynamic equilibrium compelled him to seek a mechanism that would be self-sustaining, leading to a more or less steady level of vulcanism during the history of the earth. To provide this continuing source of energy he suggested that ‘hydrogen evolved during the process of saturation, may, on coming afterwards into contact with the heated metallic oxides, reduce them again to metals’. Thus, in suggesting a ‘circle of action’ by which the internal heat and ‘the stability of the volcanic energy’ were preserved (Lyell, , op. cit. (37), ii, p. 461)Google Scholar, he envisaged a continuous chemical reaction. In this he was willing to stretch contemporary credulity, in order to maintain his rejection of a uni-directional cooling mechanism. Only thus could his strict constructionist view of uniformitarianism be maintained. His view of uniformitarianism demanded the constant balance of uplift, erosion, submergence and deposition. Mountains, to Lyell, were a special case of this more general process. See, for example, Lyell, (op. cit. (37), ii, p. 479)Google Scholar, where he describes them as ‘the agents of a conservative principle above all others essential for the stability of the system’. Lyell had here become the captive of the ‘stability of the system’, the doctrine to which his own strict ‘kind and tempo’ uniformitarian methodology drove him.

38 Herschel, J., ‘Letter to Lyell’, The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (ed. Babbage, C.), London, 1837, pp. 202–17.Google Scholar Also Babbage, C., ‘On the action of existing causes in producing elevations and subsidences in portions of the earth's surface’, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise: A Fragment, Appendix G, London, 1837, pp. 187–8.Google Scholar

39 The other topic, in addition to the more specific question of the origin of mountain chains, that occupied the attention of Darwin's contemporaries was the legitimacy of any theoretical reasoning and mechanistic speculation in relation to what was then known of the structure of the earth. Sedgwick, for example, in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society (Sedgwick, A., ‘Address to the Geological Society, delivered on the evening of the anniversary, Feb. 18, 1831’, Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond. (1831), 1, pp. 281–316)Google Scholar, cautioned, ‘Geology is a science of observation; and it is a humiliating fact…that the material combinations we investigate in an attempt to classify are too rude and ill-defined to be regarded as the appropriate results of any simple law of nature’. But, in spite of this admonition, Sedgwick proceeded in some ways to ignore his own advice; noting the connection of the laws of physics with the structure of the earth, he speculated expansively on an original molten state of the earth, with a high temperature and subsequent refrigeration, reflected amongst the fossils of ‘the ancient strata’. He also speculated on a contracting earth, ‘planetary perturbation’, changes in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, and ‘returning cycles’ in earth history (ibid., pp. 298–301). After a lengthy review, he concluded, ‘Of the origin of volcanic forces we know nothing: but we do know that they are the irregular secondary results of great masses of matter obeying the primary laws of atomic action – and are aggravated or constrained by an endless number of causes, external and purely mechanical’ (ibid., p. 301). This mixture of admonition to theoretical restraint and indulgence to personal speculation was not uncommon in scientific writings of the period. Thus, Whewell, in his 1838 Presidential Address to the Geological Society, reviewed competing hypotheses in geological dynamics – including Darwin's – and distinguished between the ‘proximal’ effects (elevation, subsidence, vulcanism, etc.) and the ‘ulterior’ causes (Whewell, , ‘Address to the Geological Society’Google Scholar, Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond. (1838), 2, pp. 624–49)Google Scholar, which involved ‘subterraneous machinery’. He concluded that this ‘mighty maze’ was not without a plan that may allow the development of sound geological theory, but: Those who aspire to the felicity of knowing the causes of things, must not only trample underfoot the fears of a timid unphilosophical spirit, which the poet deems so necessary a preparation, but they must look with a steady eye on difficulty as well as violence. They must regard the terrors of the volcano and the earthquake, the secret paths by which hot and cold and moist and dry ran into their places, the wildest rush of the fluid mass, the latent powers which give solidity to the rock, – as operations of which they have to trace the laws and measure the quantities with mathematical exactness.

40 Darwin, C., op. cit. (3), p. 658.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 660.

42 See also Rudwick, M. J. S., ‘Darwin and the world of geology’ (Commentary) in The Darwinian Heritage (ed. Kohn, D.), Princeton, NJ, 1985, pp. 511–18Google Scholar and Herbert, S., ‘Darwin as a geologist’, Scientific American, (1986), 254, no. 5, pp. 116–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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45 DAR 42, fol. 8, Cambridge University Library.

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47 Ibid.

48 See also Cannon, W. F., ‘The uniformitarian-catastrophist debate’, Isis, (1960), 51, pp. 38–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of Lyell's view.

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52 Ibid., p. 625.

53 Ibid., p. 625.

54 Ibid., p. 623.

55 Ibid., p. 605.

56 Ibid., p. 606.

57 Ibid., p. 606.

58 Ibid., p. 607.

59 Ibid., p. 608.

60 Ibid., p. 619.

61 Ibid., p. 615.

62 Ibid., p. 619.

63 Michell, J., ‘Conjectures concerning the cause, and observations upon the phenomena of earthquakes, particularly of that great earthquake of the first of November 1755, which proved so fatal to the city of Lisbon, and whose effects were felt as far as Africa and more or less throughout almost all of Europe’, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. (1760), 50, pt 2, p. 580.Google Scholar

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65 Ibid., p. 623 (emphasis added).

66 ibid., p. 624.

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73 Ibid., p. 631.

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82 Woodward, H., The History of the Geological Society of London, London, 1907, p. 146.Google Scholar That policy has deprived us of what might have been valuable information. On some occasions, informal records were kept of the conversations, and I have approached Dr John Thackray, Archivist of the Geological Society, to enquire about such a possibility on 7 March 1838. He tells me that he knows of no such record. I have examined the Geological Society minutes of the meeting, and they provide no useful commentary. The role of the Geological Society in the overall development of the science during this period is also discussed by Sandra Herbert, James A. Secord and Martin J. S. Rudwick.

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93 Ibid., p. 300.

94 Lyell, C., Principles of Geology, 7th edn, vol. ii, London, 1847, p. 333.Google Scholar

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102 Ibid., p. 607.

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109 Ibid., p. 631.

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122 DAR 42, fol. 52, Cambridge University Library.

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