The Seashell On The Mountaintop - Hardcover

Cutler, Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434008575 ISBN 13: 9780434008575

Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd, 2003

Synopsis

Dubbed "the founder of modern geology" by Stephen Jay Gould, the 17th-century Danish scientist Nicolaus Steno was the first man to discover "deep time": to suggest that the existence of fossils, particularly those far away from where the animals of which they are the remains would have lived ("the seashell on the mountaintop") demanded a much longer history for the Earth than the roughly 6000 years suggested by the Bible. Steno's work was ignored for over a century: he himself dropped his geological studies without completing a university dissertation; he converted to Catholicism and later became a bishop; in 1988 he was beatified by Pope John Paul I. This work tells the story of this passionate and fascinating man, exploring his contributions to geology and his remarkable ideas on science and religion. Steno's work was eventually to transform Western ideas of time, creating not only a long past for the earth, but also the possibility of a future that was not about to be cut short by Armageddon.

About this title

Review:

'...insightful, entertaining and beautifully produced.' -- Sunday Telegraph

'Alan Cutler fluidly and elegantly charts the birthing pains of geology...' -- Daily Telegraph

...it makes your wrestle with the unwillingness shown by people, however intelligent, to accept the evidence of their own eyes -- Daily Mail

Delightful... Cutler has managed to make whole cloth out of the vague threads of the Steno story... -- Simon Winchester (in the Boston Globe)

From the Publisher:

The extraordinary story of the 17th century Danish geologist Steno, who was the first man to claim that the earth must be older than the Bible claimed, forever changing Western civilisation's ideas of time and undermining biblical authority, yet ended his life a Catholic bishop.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0434008575
• ISBN 13: 9780434008575
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240