GEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Geol. J. 44: 621 (2009)

BOOK REVIEW

THE EARTH ON SHOW: FOSSILS AND THE POE-TICS OF POPULAR SCIENCE, 1802-1856 by RalphO’Connor. University of Chicago Press, Chicago,2008. No. of pages: xiiiþ541. Price: US$45-00. ISBN978-0-226-61668-1 (hardback).

How did the new science of geology become ‘popular’ withan interested, yet ignorant public in the early 19th century?Who were the evangelists who spread the new gospels ofstrata, structure and Saurians far and wide without the aid ofa Tim Haines or a Steven Spielberg? Not throughprofessional science writers, although ‘hacks’ would soonappear, but largely by the works of hands-on geologistswhose names remain familiar, such as Lyell and Mantell.They were writing books that were part of the culture of theirtime, not part of a separate scientific literature; popularisersof geology relied as much on literary technique andquotations from Byron as might any other author.

The Earth on Show has introduced me to ‘an extraordi-nary half-century of creative innovation and literaryexperimentation’ (p. 199) at a time ‘that science writingwas an integral part of 19th-century literary culture’ (p. 13).The spectacle of antediluvian lost worlds was demonstratedat this time, not on DVD, but at the Crystal Palace, inpanoramas and dioramas, and, perhaps most widely, on theprinted page. It was during this period that so much of whatwe now regard as standard techniques was first developed.To give the most visual of examples, panoramas of theancient Earth were a major literary achievement, usingancient narrative structures to communicate the latest factsand ideas of contemporary science. Consider, for example,the Reverend William Buckland, that ‘. . . vulgar and almostcoarse man’ (Darwin, 1983, p. 60), who restored thePleistocene hyaena’s den at Kirkdale Cave in Yorkshire in1822. This might appear almost commonplace to the modernreader, but it was the first time that an antediluvian habitathad been reconstructed. His achievement was celebrated byhis friends, who translated it into verse, and, more formally,by the Royal Society, who made Buckland the first geologistto receive the Copley Medal in the same year.

Buckland’s antediluvian hyaena den was the precursor ofall later reconstructions, most notably those populated byextinct Saurians as were published by Gideon Mantell andothers. Mantell’s books, and those of other authors, included

the work of John Martin, who had previously reconstructedbiblical tragedies and illustrated ‘Paradise Lost.’ Heemployed the same attention to detail in restoring ‘TheCountry of the Iguanodon’ for Mantell.

O’Connor is at pains to emphasise that ancient worldscould be resurrected for the 19th century geological ‘tourist’in all the forms available to art. Books on geology were trulypart of the literature of the time, and there were no greatercontemporary literary giants in geology than Charles Lyell,who had studied under Buckland at Oxford, and HughMiller. O’Connor is fulsome in his praise of Miller, ‘. . . oneof Britain’s most talented and prolific men of letters’ (p. 392)and ably demonstrates why ‘[n]o subsequent popularisercould escape Miller’s influence’ (p. 390).

The Earth on Show is a marvellous addition to theUniversity of Chicago’s catalogue of monographs on thehistory of 19th century geology. A book of this breadthcannot be done full justice in my brief review, but I have triedto give something of its tone by considering a few aspectsthat interested me. Ralph O’Connor has written a fascinatingand detailed account of a hitherto under-explored aspect ofpopular geology. It has my unreserved recommendation toanyone with an interest in an age of geological giants whocommunicated as well with the public as with their fellowsavants.

REFERENCES

Darwin C. 1983. Autobiography. [Written 1876–1881.] In CharlesDarwin - Thomas Henry Huxley Autobiographies, de Beer G(ed.). Oxford University Press: Oxford; 8–88.

STEPHEN DONOVAN

Naturalis, Darwinweg 2, Leiden 2333 CR, the Netherlands

Published online 3 August 2009 in Wiley InterScience(www.interscience.wiley.com)

DOI: 10.1002/gj.1174

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.