Worlds Before Adam

List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
A note on footnotes, references, and quotations
 
 
Introduction
 
PART ONE   
 
1. Cuvier's model for geohistory (1817–25)
§1.1 Cuvier's Fossil Bones--§1.2 The Fossil Bones revised--§1.3 Cuvier's secular resurrection--§1.4 Conclusion
 
2. Monsters from deep time (1819–24)
§2.1 The strange ichthyosaur--§2.2 The Geological Society--§2.3 Conybeare's plesiosaur--§2.4 Conclusion
 
3. The new stratigraphy (1817–25)
§3.1 The practice of geognosy--§3.2 "Conybeare and Phillips"--§3.3 The stratigraphy of Europe--§3.4 Conclusion 

4. Outlines of life's history (1818–27)
§4.1 "Paleontology" defined--§4.2 Life's own history--§4.3 The life of ancient seas--§4.4 Ancient plant life--§4.5 Conclusion
 
5. Ancient monsters on land (1818–25)
§5.1 Buckland's megalosaur--§5.2 Mantell's giant herbivore--§5.3 Wealden stratigraphy--§5.4 Mantell's iguanodon--§5.5 The Stonesfield marsupials--§5.6 Conclusion
 
6. Geological deluge and biblical Flood (1819–24)
§6.1 Buckland's "hyaena story" at Kirkdale--§6.2 Buckland's new "diluvial" evidence--§6.3 "Relics of the deluge"--§6.4 Critics of the deluge--§6.5 Conclusion
 
7. The role of actual causes (1818–24)
§7.1 The adequacy of actual causes--§7.2 Von Hoff and Nature's "statistics"--§7.3 Etna: Europe's greatest volcano--§7.4 Actual causes and global exploration--§7.5 Conclusion
 
8. The dynamic earth (1818–24)
§8.1 Crustal elevation--§8.2 The "Temple of Serapis"-- §8.3 Von Buch and the origin of mountain ranges--§8.4 Conclusion
 

PART TWO    
 
9. The engine of geohistory (1824–29)
§9.1 Brongniart's global stratigraphy--§9.2 Fourier's physics of a cooling earth--§9.3 Scrope's directional geotheory--§9.4 Élie de Beaumont's sequence of revolutions--§9.5 Conclusion
 
10. The Tertiary gateway (1824–27)
§10.1 The adequacy of actual causes--§10.2 Interpreting the Tertiary world--§10.3 Prévost's reinterpretation of the Paris Basin--§10.4 Conclusion
 
11. The geologists' time-machine (1825–31)
§11.1 Fossil land surfaces and soils--§11.2 Buckland and the footprints of monsters--§11.3 First scenes from deep time--§11.4 Conclusion
 
12. A directional history of life (1825–31)
§12.1 Tertiary geohistory--§12.2 Adolphe Brongniart: plant life on a cooling earth--§12.3 Tropics in the Arctic?--§12.4 Conclusion
 
13. The last revolution (1824–30)
§13.1 Alluvium and diluvium--§13.2 Alpine erratic blocks--§13.3 Erratic blocks in Scandinavia--§13.4 Esmark's glacial conjecture--§13.5 Conclusion
 
14. The last mass extinction (1826–31)
§14.1 Bone caves for Buckland--§14.2 Buckland's worldwide antediluvial fossils--§14.3 Fleming and the course of extinction--§14.4 Lyell the budding synthesizer--§14.5 Conclusion
 
15. The centrality of central France (1826–28)
§15.1  Scrope's "Time!--Time!--Time!"--§15.2 Faunas and volcanoes in Auvergne--§15.3 Conclusion
 
16. Men among the mammoths? (1825–30)
§16.1 The question of contemporaneity--§16.2 Human fossils in Languedoc--§16.3 Province and metropolis--§16.4 Conclusion
 
17. The specter of transmutation (1825–29)
§17.1 Geoffroy's new transformism--§17.2 Lyell confronts Lamarck--§17.3 Conclusion
 
 
PART THREE 
 
18. Lyell and Auvergne geology (1827–28)
§18.1 Lyell on Scrope's Auvergne--§18.2 Lyell as geological reformer--§18.3 Auvergne through Lyell's eyes--§18.4 Conclusion
 
19. A geological Grand Tour (1828)
§19.1 Lyell and Murchison in southern France--§19.2 Lyell and Murchison in northern Italy--§19.3 Lyell in southern Italy--§19.4 Lyell in Sicily--§19.5  Conclusion
 
20. Lyell in European context (1829–30)
§20.1 Lyell's homeward journey--§20.2 Parisian debates on the Tertiaries--§20.3 Diluvialists and fluvialists in London--§20.4 Sedgwick's anniversary address--§20.5 Conclusion
 
21. Geology's guiding principles (1830)
§21.1 Introducing Lyell's Principles--§21.2 The lessons of history--§21.3 The identity of past and present--§21.4 Refuting a directional geohistory--§21.5 Refuting a progressive history of life--§21.6 Lyell's revival of geotheory--§21.7 Conclusion
 
22. "The Huttonian theory rediviva" (1830–31)
§22.1 Lyell's survey of actual causes--§22.2 Scrope on Lyell--§22.3 De la Beche and Conybeare join in--§22.4 Conclusion
 
23. Promoting Lyell's "Principles" (1830–31)
§23.1 Two critics from Cambridge--§23.2 Lyell's Continental reception--§23.3 The goal of Tertiary geohistory--§23.4 An actual cause in action--§23.5 "Bishops and enlightened saints"--§23.6 Conclusion
 
24. The uniformity of life (1831–32)
§24.1 The second volume of Lyell's Principles--§24.2 The births and deaths of species--§24.3 Organic progress as an illusion--§24.4 Catastrophists and one uniformitarian--§24.5 Conclusion
 
25. Completing Lyell's "Principles" (1832–33)
§25.1 Lyell's lectures--§25.2 A Continental interlude--§25.3 The final volume of Lyell's Principles--§25.4 Lyell's methods for geohistory--§25.5 Conclusion
 
26. Geohistory in retrospect (1833)
§26.1 Lyell reconstructs the Tertiary era--§26.2 Geohistory with "no vestige of a beginning"--§26.3 Conclusion
 
 
PART FOUR  
 
27. Challenges to Lyell's geotheory (1832–35)
§27.1 Contested meanings of "uniformity"--§27.2 De la Beche and "theoretical geology"--§27.3 Scrope and the revised Principles--§27.4 Sedgwick and "subterranean cookery"--§27.5 Conclusion
 
28. The human species in geohistory (1830–37)
§28.1 Tournal confronts the savant world--§28.2 Schmerling's human fossils in Belgium--§28.3 The first fossil primates-- §28.4 Conclusion
 
29. Buckland's designful geohistory (1832–36)
§29.1 Natural theology and "scriptural" geology--§29.2  Stratigraphical foundations--§29.3 Paley geohistoricized--§29.4 Conclusion
 
30. The progression of life (1833–39)
§30.1 Agassiz and the age of fish--§30.2 Phillips's Carboniferous benchmark--§30.3 Murchison's Silurian and Sedgwick's Cambrian--§30.4 Conclusion
 
31. Imagining geohistory (1831–40)
§31.1 The "great Devonian controversy"--§31.2 Gressly's concept of "facies"--§31.3 More scenes from deep time--§31.4 Conclusion
 
32. Lyell's g