A History of Geology

This book is by far the best history of geology available. It begins with the Greeks and ends with continental drift and plate tectonics. Gabriel Gohau also looks at the early theories of the formation of the world and then moves to philosophical debates over mountains, fossils, the Flood, volcanoes, and cycles of earth history that preoccupied the geologists and biologists of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. After discussing the late nineteenth-century consolidation of theories about the mechanisms of changes in the earth, he concludes with an account of twentieth century geology's scientific revolution.

    

GABRIEL GOHAU, an active member of the French Committee for the History of Geology, teaches science in St. Cloud, France. His Histoire de la géologie was originally published in a shorter version by Editions La Decouverte in 1987. The translators, Albert V. Carozzi and Marguerite Carozzi, are also distinguished historians of geology and the translators of many books on geology and its history. The translation has been supported by a grant from the French Ministry of Culture.