James Hutton: Biography from Answers.com

The Scottish naturalist James Hutton (1726-1797), the founder of modern geology, is best known for his "Theory of the Earth".

James Hutton was born in Edinburgh on June 3, 1726. He entered Edinburgh University in 1740 to study the humanities, but he developed an intense and long-lasting interest in chemistry. At 17 Hutton was placed as an apprentice in a lawyer's office; however, performing chemistry experiments during office hours led to his dismissal, and he then chose medicine as a profession. For 3 years he pursued medical studies at Edinburgh University in spite of the fact that no degree of medicine could be obtained from that institution. Therefore, in 1747 he went to Paris to study chemistry and anatomy. He received a medical degree at Leiden in 1749.

Back in London, Hutton realized that even medicine would not give him sufficient spare time for his scientific interests. He therefore abandoned medicine for agriculture. In 1752 he went to a farm in Norfolk, where the scenery apparently turned his mind to mineralogy and geology.

Theory of the Earth

In 1754 Hutton visited Flanders allegedly to compare husbandry methods with those practiced in Norfolk. Actually he spent most of his time making geological observations later to be included in his Theory of the Earth. At the end of the year he settled down at his family property in Berwickshire, where he managed a farm according to the most scientific methods. In 1768 he abandoned his country life and settled in Edinburgh, spending all his time on scientific studies. His interests, however, were by no means confined to geology, for he published treatises on physics and metaphysics and investigated all branches of science except mathematics.

The spectacular geological features around Edinburgh provided Hutton with numerous fundamental observations to combine with his broad knowledge of many parts of Great Britain. Eventually he was led to formulate a definite theory, or system, of the earth, and although he had discussed it at length with his friends, he did not write it down until he was persuaded to address in 1785 one of the first meetings of the newly founded Royal Society of Edinburgh. The full text was published in the Transactions in 1788 under the title "Theory of the Earth; or, An Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution and Restoration of Land upon the Globe." The paper attracted little attention, perhaps because of its misleading title of "Theory" and its publication in the transactions of a learned society which had just been founded. However, when the paper was criticized in 1793, Hutton revised and developed his theory in greater detail. The result was the Theory of the Earth, with Proofs and Illustrations (2 vols., 1795). A projected third volume remained incomplete and was published by the Geological Society of London in 1899.

Hutton's Doctrine

In Hutton's opinion, the purpose of geology is first to collect objective data by observing the earth's crust and second to interpret the evidence with a minimum amount of imagination, rather than to begin with an artificial hypothesis and then attempt to fit the observations into a rigid theoretical framework. Hutton's theory evolved in such a natural fashion from his observations that it achieved the prerequisite of involving very little speculation. His basic assumption is that the past history of the globe should be interpreted in the light of what is happening today or has happened in recent times. This dominant idea that the present is the key to the past is so commonplace in modern geological thinking that one often fails to fully appreciate the genius of the man who first formulated it in modern times.

Hutton first turned his attention to sedimentary rocks, observing that they consist of debris of older rocks. He drew a parallel between such rocks and present-day marine deposits, comparing conglomerates with gravels, sandstones with sands, limestones with accumulations of organic debris, and shales with silts and muds. From the wide distribution of these beds - which form the continents - he understood that they could only have been deposited in the sea. Hutton's first conclusion was that the continents consisted of indurated sediments which, eroded from some preexisting emerged land, had been spread in strata over the sea floor. Since all these sedimentary rocks were originally deposited as soft sediments but appear today as indurated rocks, he attributed this change to the combined action of pressure and subterranean heat.

Hutton's next problem was to explain how beds originally deposited in a horizontal fashion on the sea floor could occur in mountains such as the Alps, tilted, ruptured, and contorted in a spectacular fashion. Hutton understood that such occurrences resulted from powerful revolutions which at different times in the past seem to have affected the entire earth's crust. After having demonstrated the existence of episodes of large-scale deformation which had uplifted the sea bottom with its indurated sediments and folded them in a complex manner to build the existing continents, he investigated the possible cause of these processes. He assumed the existence of forces acting vertically and upward which were probably related to deep-seated reservoirs of heat. The action of these vertical forces interfering with gravity and the resistance of the rocks would create a lateral and oblique component responsible for the contortions of the beds.

Hutton considered volcanoes as safety valves through which some of the earth's internal heat could escape, but he understood that the heat was not due to the combustion of coal seams or the oxidation of pyritic shales, as believed for a long time, but to a deep-seated and molten mass. By means of this concept, Hutton attempted to explain the origin of the various types of nonstratified rocks, either massive or in veins, which he had observed in different places. He called them whinstones (basic rocks, including basalts), porphyries, and granites, and interpreted them as material that once had been in a molten condition and subsequently had been injected upward during the great disturbances of the earth's crust.

Most of the modern ideas on geomorphology are to be found in the Huttonian theory, including the importance of the erosion and transportation power of mountain glaciers. However, these concepts were ignored or even rejected for many years.

Hutton died on March 26, 1797. His Theory of the Earth is marred by a rather obscure style and defective organization. One of his friends, John Playfair, the mathematician and natural philosopher, was able to give the work a well-organized and elegant presentation, combined with a series of personal comments, under the title Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802).

James Hutton
Hutton as painted by Sir Henry Raeburn
Born	14 June 1726 (1726-06-14) Edinburgh , Scotland
Died	26 March 1797 (1797-03-27)
Nationality	Scottish
Fields	Geology
Known for	Plutonic geology Deep time

Early life and career

James Hutton was born in Edinburgh on 3 June 1726 OS as one of five children of a merchant who was Edinburgh City Treasurer, but died when James was still young. Hutton's mother had him educated at the High School of Edinburgh where he was particularly interested in mathematics and chemistry, then when he was 14 he attended the University of Edinburgh as a "student of humanity". He was apprenticed to a lawyer when he was 17, but took more interest in chemical experiments than legal work and at the age of 18 became a physician's assistant as well as attending lectures in medicine at the University of Edinburgh. After three years he studied the subject in Paris, then in 1749 took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Leyden with a thesis on blood circulation.^[5] Around 1747 he had a son by a Miss Edington, and though he gave his child James Smeaton Hutton financial assistance, he had little to do with the boy who went on to become a post-office clerk in London.^[6]

After his degree Hutton returned to London, then in mid-1750 went back to Edinburgh and resumed chemical experiments with close friend, James Davie. Their work on production of sal ammoniac from soot led to their partnership in a profitable chemical works,^[7] manufacturing the crystalline salt which was used for dyeing, metalworking and as smelling salts and previously was available only from natural sources and had to be imported from Egypt. Hutton owned and rented out properties in Edinburgh, employing a factor to manage this business.^[8]

Farming and geology

Hutton inherited from his father the Berwickshire farms of Slighhouses, a lowland farm which had been in the family since 1713, and the hill farm of Nether Monynut.^[9] In the early 1750s he moved to Slighhouses and set about making improvements, introducing farming practices from other parts of Britain and experimenting with plant and animal husbandry.^[10] He recorded his ideas and innovations in an unpublished treatise on The Elements of Agriculture.^[11]

This developed his interest in meteorology and geology,^[10] and by 1753 he had "become very fond of studying the surface of the earth, and was looking with anxious curiosity into every pit or ditch or bed of a river that fell in his way”. Clearing and draining his farm provided ample opportunities, and Hutton noticed that “a vast proportion of the present rocks are composed of materials afforded by the destruction of bodies, animal, vegetable and mineral, of more ancient formation”. His theoretical ideas began to come together in 1760. While his farming activities continued, in 1764 he went on a geological tour of the north of Scotland with George Clerk Maxwell.^[12]

Edinburgh and canal building

In 1768 Hutton returned to Edinburgh, letting his farms to tenants but continuing to take an interest in farm improvements and research which included experiments carried out at Slighhouses. He developed a red dye made from the roots of the madder plant.^[13]

He had a house built in 1770 at St John’s Hill, Edinburgh, overlooking Salisbury Crags.^[13] He was one of the most influential participants in the Scottish Enlightenment, and fell in with numerous first-class minds in the sciences including John Playfair, philosopher David Hume and economist Adam Smith.^[14] He was a particularly close friend of Joseph Black, and the two of them together with Adam Smith founded the Oyster Club for weekly meetings, with Hutton and Black finding a venue which turned out to have rather disreputable associations.^[14]

Between 1767 and 1774 Hutton had considerable close involvement with the construction of the Forth and Clyde canal, making full use of his geological knowledge, both as a shareholder and as a member of the committee of management, and attended meetings including extended site inspections of all the works. In 1777 he published a pamphlet on Considerations on the Nature, Quality and Distinctions of Coal and Culm which successfully helped to obtain relief from excise duty on carrying small coal.^[15]

Theory of rock formations

Hutton hit on a variety of ideas to explain the rock formations he saw around him, but according to Playfair he "was in no haste to publish his theory; for he was one of those who are much more delighted with the contemplation of truth, than with the praise of having discovered it”. After some 25 years of work,^[16] his Theory of the Earth; or an Investigation of the Laws observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe was read to meetings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in two parts, the first by his friend Joseph Black on 7 March 1785, and the second by himself on 4 April 1785. Hutton subsequently read an abstract of his dissertation Concerning the System of the Earth, its Duration and Stability to Society meeting on 4 July 1785,^[17] which he had printed and circulated privately.^[18] In it, he outlined his theory as follows;

The solid parts of the present land appear in general, to have been composed of the productions of the sea, and of other materials similar to those now found upon the shores. Hence we find reason to conclude:
1st, That the land on which we rest is not simple and original, but that it is a composition, and had been formed by the operation of second causes.
2nd, That before the present land was made, there had subsisted a world composed of sea and land, in which were tides and currents, with such operations at the bottom of the sea as now take place. And,
Lastly, That while the present land was forming at the bottom of the ocean, the former land maintained plants and animals; at least the sea was than inhabited by animals, in a similar manner as it is at present.
Hence we are led to conclude, that the greater part of our land, if not the whole had been produced by operations natural to this globe; but that in order to make this land a permanent body, resisting the operations of the waters, two things had been required;
1st, The consolidation of masses formed by collections of loose or incoherent materials;
2ndly, The elevation of those consolidated masses from the bottom of the sea, the place where they were collected, to the stations in which they now remain above the level of the ocean.

Search for evidence

At Glen Tilt in the Cairngorm mountains in the Scottish Highlands, Hutton found granite penetrating metamorphic schists, in a way which indicated that the granite had been molten at the time. This showed to him that granite formed from cooling of molten rock, not precipitation out of water as others at the time believed, and that the granite must be younger than the schists.^[19]^[20]

He went on to find a similar penetration of volcanic rock through sedimentary rock near the centre of Edinburgh, at Salisbury Crags,^[2] adjoining Arthur's Seat: this is now known as Hutton's Section.^[21]^[22] He found other examples in Galloway in 1786, and on the Isle of Arran in 1787.

Hutton Unconformity at Jedburgh. Photograph (2003) below Clerk of Eldin illustration (1787).

The existence of angular unconformities had been noted by Nicolas Steno and by French geologists including Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who interpreted them in terms of Neptunism as "primary formations". Hutton wanted to examine such formations himself to see “particular marks” of the relationship between the rock layers. On the 1787 trip to Arran he found his first example of Hutton's Unconformity to the north of Newton Point near Lochranza,^[23]^[24] but the limited view meant that the condition of the underlying strata was not clear enough for him,^[25] and he incorrectly thought that the strata were conformable at a depth below the exposed outcrop.^[26]

Later in 1787 Hutton noted what is now known as the Hutton Unconformity at Inchbonny,^[3] Jedburgh, in layers of sedimentary rock.^[27] As shown in the illustrations to the right, layers of greywacke in the lower layers of the cliff face are tilted almost vertically, and above an intervening layer of conglomerate lie horizontal layers of Old Red Sandstone. He later wrote of how he "rejoiced at my good fortune in stumbling upon an object so interesting in the natural history of the earth, and which I had been long looking for in vain." That year, he found the same sequence in Teviotdale.^[25]

An eroded outcrop at Siccar Point showing sloping red sandstone above vertical greywacke was sketched by Sir James Hall in 1788.

In the Spring of 1788 he set off with John Playfair to the Berwickshire coast and found more examples of this sequence in the valleys of the Tour and Pease Burns near Cockburnspath.^[25] They then took a boat trip from Dunglass Burn east along the coast with the geologist Sir James Hall of Dunglass. They found the sequence in the cliff below St. Helens, then just to the east at Siccar Point found what Hutton called "a beautiful picture of this junction washed bare by the sea".^[28]^[29] Playfair later commented about the experience, "the mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time".^[30] Continuing along the coast, they made more discoveries including sections of the vertical beds showing strong ripple marks which gave Hutton "great satisfaction" as a confirmation of his supposition that these beds had been laid horizontally in water. He also found conglomerate at altitudes that demonstrated the extent of erosion of the strata, and said of this that "we never should have dreamed of meeting with what we now perceived”.^[25]

Hutton reasoned that there must have been several cycles, each involving deposition on the seabed, uplift with tilting and erosion then undersea again for further layers to be deposited, and there could have been many cycles before over an extremely long history. In a 1788 paper he presented at the Royal Society of Edinburgh,^[3] Hutton remarked, "we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end." (This memorable line^[3]^[31] was quoted in the 1989 song “No Control” by songwriter and professor Greg Graffin.^[32])

Publication

Though Hutton circulated privately a printed version of the abstract of his Theory (Concerning the System of the Earth, its Duration, and Stability) which he read at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 4 July 1785;^[18] the theory as read at the 7 March 1785 and 4 April 1785 meetings did not appear in print until 1788. It was titled Theory of the Earth; or an Investigation of the Laws observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe and appeared in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. I, Part II, pp.209-304, plates I and II, published 1788.^[17]

Following criticism, especially Richard Kirwan's, who thought him atheist and not logical, among other things,^[17] Hutton published a two volume version of his theory in 1795,^[33]^[34] consisting of the 1788 version of his theory (with slight additions) along with a lot of material drawn from shorter papers Hutton already had to hand on various subjects such as the origin of granite. It included a review of alternative theories, such as those of Thomas Burnet and Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon.

The whole was entitled An Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge and of the Progress of Reason, from Sense to Science and Philosophy when the third volume was completed in 1794.^[35] Its 2,138 pages prompted Playfair to remark that “The great size of the book, and the obscurity which may justly be objected to many parts of it, have probably prevented it from being received as it deserves.”

Opposing theories

His new theories placed him into opposition with the then-popular Neptunist theories of Abraham Gottlob Werner, that all rocks had precipitated out of a single enormous flood. Hutton proposed that the interior of the Earth was hot, and that this heat was the engine which drove the creation of new rock: land was eroded by air and water and deposited as layers in the sea; heat then consolidated the sediment into stone, and uplifted it into new lands. This theory was dubbed "Plutonist" in contrast to the flood-oriented theory.

As well as combating the Neptunists, he also opened up the concept of deep time for scientific purposes, in opposition to Catastrophism. Rather than accepting that the earth was no more than a few thousand years old, he maintained that the Earth must be much older, with a history extending indefinitely into the distant past.^[19] His main line of argument was that the tremendous displacements and changes he was seeing did not happen in a short period of time by means of catastrophe, but that processes still happening on the Earth in the present day had caused them. As these processes were very gradual, the Earth needed to be ancient, in order to allow time for the changes. Before long, scientific inquiries provoked by his claims had pushed back the age of the earth into the millions of years – still too short when compared with what is known in the 21st century, but a distinct improvement.

Acceptance of geological theories

The prose of Principles of Knowledge was so obscure, in fact, that it also impeded the acceptance of Hutton's geological theories.^[36] Restatements of his geological ideas (though not his thoughts on evolution) by John Playfair in 1802 and then Charles Lyell in the 1830s removed this hindrance. If anything, Hutton's ideas were eventually accepted too well. At least some of the initial resistance to modern scientific ideas like plate tectonics and asteroid strikes causing mass extinctions can be attributed to too-strict adherence to uniformitarianism.^{[citation needed]}

Other contributions

Meteorology

It was not merely the earth to which Hutton directed his attention. He had long studied the changes of the atmosphere. The same volume in which his Theory of the Earth appeared contained also a Theory of Rain. He contended that the amount of moisture which the air can retain in solution increases with temperature, and, therefore, that on the mixture of two masses of air of different temperatures a portion of the moisture must be condensed and appear in visible form. He investigated the available data regarding rainfall and climate in different regions of the globe, and came to the conclusion that the rainfall is regulated by the humidity of the air on the one hand, and mixing of different air currents in the higher atmosphere on the other.

Evolution

Hutton also advocated uniformitarianism for living creatures too – evolution, in a sense – and even suggested natural selection as a possible mechanism affecting them:

"...if an organised body is not in the situation and circumstances best adapted to its sustenance and propagation, then, in conceiving an indefinite variety among the individuals of that species, we must be assured, that, on the one hand, those which depart most from the best adapted constitution, will be the most liable to perish, while, on the other hand, those organised bodies, which most approach to the best constitution for the present circumstances, will be best adapted to continue, in preserving themselves and multiplying the individuals of their race." – Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge, volume 2.^[35]

Hutton gave the example that where dogs survived through "swiftness of foot and quickness of sight... the most defective in respect of those necessary qualities, would be the most subject to perish, and that those who employed them in greatest perfection... would be those who would remain, to preserve themselves, and to continue the race". Equally, if an acute sense of smell were "more necessary to the sustenance of the animal... the same principle [would] change the qualities of the animal, and.. produce a race of well scented hounds, instead of those who catch their prey by swiftness". The same "principle of variation" would influence "every species of plant, whether growing in a forest or a meadow".

He came to his ideas as the result of experiments in plant and animal breeding, some of which he outlined in an unpublished manuscript, the Elements of Agriculture. He distinguished between heritable variation as the result of breeding, and non-heritable variations caused by environmental differences such as soil and climate.

Hutton saw his "principle of variation" as explaining the development of varieties, but rejected the idea of evolution originating species as a "romantic fantasy"^{[citation needed]}. As a deist, to him this mechanism allowed species to form varieties better adapted to particular conditions and was evidence of benevolent design in nature. Hutton's ideas on geology were clarified in Charles Lyell's books, which Charles Darwin read with enthusiasm during his voyage on the Beagle, and it remained to Darwin independently to develop the idea of natural selection to explain The Origin of Species and bring it to the forefront of public consciousness at the same time as providing the voluminous evidence necessary to win over the scientific community to the theory.

Works

1785. Abstract of a dissertation read in the Royal Society of Edinburgh, upon the seventh of March, and fourth of April, MDCCLXXXV, Concerning the System of the Earth, Its Duration, and Stability. Edinburgh. 30pp.
1788. The theory of rain. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 1, Part 2, pp. 41-86.
1788. Theory of the Earth; or an investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution, and restoration of land upon the Globe. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 1, Part 2, pp. 209-304.
1792. Dissertations on different subjects in natural philosophy. Edinburgh & London: Strahan & Cadell.
1794. Observations on granite. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 3, pp. 77-81.
1794. A dissertation upon the philosophy of light, heat, and fire. Edinburgh: Cadell, Junior, Davies.
1794. An investigation of the principles of knowledge and of the progress of reason, from sense to science and philosophy. Edinburgh: Strahan & Cadell.
1795. Theory of the Earth; with proofs and illustrations. Edinburgh: Creech. 2 vols.
1797. Elements of Agriculture. Unpublished manuscript.
1899. Theory of the Earth; with proofs and illustrations, vol III, Edited by Sir Archibald Geikie. Geological Society, Burlington House, London.

References

^ University of Edinburgh. "Millennial Plaques: James Hutton". (Hutton's Millennial Plaque, which reads, “In honour of James Hutton 1726-1797 Geologist, chemist, naturalist, father of modern geology, alumnus of the University,” is located at the main entrance of the Grant Institute). http://www.ed.ac.uk/explore/people/plaques/jameshutton.html.
^ ^a ^b David Denby (11 October 2004). "Northern Lights: How modern life emerged from eighteenth-century Edinburgh" (html). The New Yorker. Review of James Buchan's Crowded With Genius (Capital of the Mind in the UK). http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/10/11/041011crat_atlarge. "In 1770, James Hutton, an experimental farmer and the owner of a sal ammoniac works, began poking into the peculiar shapes and textures of the Salisbury Crags, the looming, irregular rock formations in Edinburgh. Hutton noticed something astonishing—fossilized fish remains embedded in the rock. The remains suggested that volcanic activity had raised the mass from some depth in the sea. In 1785, he delivered a lecture to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which included the remarkable statement that “with respect to human observation, this world has neither a beginning nor an end.” Coolly discarding Biblical accounts of creation, the book that he eventually published, “The Theory of the Earth,” helped establish the foundations of modern geology."
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d American Museum of Natural History (2000). "James Hutton: The Founder of Modern Geology". Earth: Inside and Out. http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/earth/p_hutton.html. "The result, therefore, of this physical enquiry,” Hutton concluded, “is that we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end."
^ Kenneth L. Taylor (September 2006). "Ages in Chaos: James Hutton and the Discovery of Deep Time". The Historian (abstract). Book review of Stephen Baxter, ISBN 0-7653-1238-7. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3498/is_200609/ai_n18326057.
^ "Early Years". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/Biography/02.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ "Settled and Unsettled". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/Biography/04.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ "Thoughts of Settling in the World". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/Biography/03.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ "Business and Related Interests". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/Entrepreneur/Frameset.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ "James Hutton the Farmer". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/Agronomy/Frameset.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ ^a ^b "Return to Slighhouses and Farm Improvement". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/Agronomy/03.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ "The Elements of Agriculture". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/Agronomy/06.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ Campbell, Lewis; Garnett, William (1882). The Life of James Clerk Maxwell. London: Macmillan and Company. p. 18. http://books.google.com/books?id=VvMzJiLU0fEC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=hutton+George+Clerk+Maxwell&source=bl&ots=bn0FzBTAnu&sig=FkxyCBtAoCqMRyx1u6qWDlgJ4XM&hl=en&ei=jHjGSdEK4O-dB9Or0ZIN&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA18,M2.
^ ^a ^b "Return to Edinburgh". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/Agronomy/05.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ ^a ^b "Hutton’s Contemporaries and The Scottish Enlightenment". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/SocialContext/Frameset.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ "The Forth and Clyde Canal". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/Entrepreneur/02.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ "The Theory of the Earth". James Hutton.org. http://www.james-hutton.org/One/Geology/03.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
^ ^a ^b ^c Theory of the Earth full text (1788 version)
^ ^a ^b Concerning the System of the Earth abstract
^ ^a ^b Robert Macfarlane (13 September 2003). "Glimpses into the abyss of time" (html). The Spectator. Review of Repcheck's The Man Who Found Time. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200309/ai_n9253355. "Hutton possessed an instinctive ability to reverse physical processes - to read landscapes backwards, as it were. Fingering the white quartz which seamed the grey granite boulders in a Scottish glen, for instance, he understood the confrontation that had once occurred between the two types of rock, and he perceived how, under fantastic pressure, the molten quartz had forced its way into the weaknesses in the mother granite."
^ Scottish Geology - Glen Tilt
^ Scottish Geology - Hutton's Section
^ Hutton's Section at Hoyrood Park
^ "Hutton's Unconformity". Isle of Arran Heritage Museum. 18 July 2008. http://www.arranmuseum.co.uk/hutton's_unconformity1.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-20.
^ "Hutton's Unconformity - Lochranza, Isle of Arran, UK - Places of Geologic Significance on Waymarking.com". http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3F65. Retrieved 2008-10-20.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Keith Montgomery (2003). "Siccar Point and Teaching the History of Geology" (pdf). University of Wisconsin. http://nagt.org/files/nagt/jge/abstracts/Montgomery_v51n5.pdf. Retrieved 2008-03-26.
^ Hugh Rance (1999). "Hutton's unconformities" (pdf). Historical Geology: The Present is the Key to the Past. QCC Press. http://geowords.com/histbookpdf/a22.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-20.
^ "Jedburgh: Hutton's Unconformity" (html). Jedburgh online. http://www.jedburgh-online.org.uk/aroundjedburgh.asp. "Whilst visiting Allar's Mill on the Jed Water, Hutton was delighted to see horizontal bands of red sandstone lying 'unconformably' on top of near vertical and folded bands of rock."
^ Hutton’s Journeys to Prove his Theory
^ Hutton's Unconformity
^ John Playfair. "Hutton's Unconformity" (html). Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. V, pt. III, 1805, quoted in Natural History, June 1999. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_5_108/ai_54830705.
^ Keith Stewart Thomson. "Vestiges of James Hutton" (html). American Scientist online, V. 89 #3 p. 212, May/June 2001 doi:10.1511/2001.3.212. http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3275,y.0,no.,content.true,page.2,css.print/issue.aspx. "It is ironic that Hutton, the man whose prose style is usually dismissed as unreadable, should have coined one of the most memorable, and indeed lyrical, sentences in all science: "(in geology) we find no vestige of a beginning,—no prospect of an end." In those simple words, Hutton framed a concept that no one had previously contemplated, that the rocks making up the earth today have not, after all, been here since Creation."
^ Greg Graffin (1989). "Lyrics, No Control" (html). No Control (Bad Religion album). http://www.altmusic.ru/bands/BadReligion/NoControl.html. "there's no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end (Hutton, 1795)"
^ Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 at Project Gutenberg
^ Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 at Project Gutenberg
^ ^a ^b Paul N. Pearson (16 October 2003). "In Retrospect" (html). Nature V. 425 #6959, p. 665. Comments on Hutton's 3-volume 1794 work, An Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge and of the Progress of Reason, from Sense to Science and Philosophy. http://thedispersalofdarwin.blogspot.com/2007/06/more-on-james-hutton.html.
^ Geikie, Archibald (1897). The Founders of Geology. London: Macmillan and Company. p. 166. http://books.google.com/books?id=xPYLAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA150&dq=james+hutton+geology&as_brr=1#PPA166,M1.

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Hutton, James.

James Hutton.org.uk, links to James Hutton – The Man and The James Hutton Trail.
Biography of James Hutton (From: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Ed., 1910-1911)
James Hutton and Uniformitarianism (scroll down)
James Hutton's memorial in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh
First Publication of Theory of the Earth
Glossary Definition and examples of unconformity
Accessible Historical Perspective on James Hutton
Works by James Hutton at Project Gutenberg
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "James Hutton", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hutton_James.html .
Works by or about James Hutton in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

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Prussia and Saxe-Weimar	Immanuel Kant · Gotthold Ephraim Lessing · Johann Gottfried von Herder · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · Friedrich von Schiller · Moses Mendelssohn

England	Edward Gibbon · Samuel Johnson · Mary Wollstonecraft · John Locke · Isaac Newton · Thomas Hobbes

Scotland	Joseph Black · James Boswell · Adam Ferguson · David Hume · Thomas Reid · Adam Smith

France	Montesquieu · François Quesnay · Voltaire · Buffon · Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Denis Diderot · Helvétius · Jean le Rond d'Alembert · Baron d'Holbach · Marquis de Sade · Condorcet · Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Italy	Cesare Beccaria

Spain	Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos · Benito Jerónimo Feijoo · Antonio de Ulloa

Portugal	Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of Pombal

Persondata
NAME	Hutton, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Scottish geologist
DATE OF BIRTH	14 June 1726
PLACE OF BIRTH	Edinburgh
DATE OF DEATH	26 March 1797
PLACE OF DEATH

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James Hutton

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