http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/5688657

Controversy in victorian geology : the cambrian -silurian dispute

Secord gives a dazzlingly detailed account of this scientific trench warfare and its social consequences. One ends up with a marvellous feeling for the major taxonomic enterprises in Darwin's younger day: mapping, ordering, conquering 'taming the chaos"" of the strata. All of these of course had social and imperial ramifications; and Secord mentions geology's moral appeal (in supporting a divinely-stratified Creation) to a beleaguered elite intent on subduing the lower orders. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand techn.

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