Geology, like other branches of natural history, began as a descriptive activity. Renaissance scholars spent time identifying rocks, minerals, and gems using traditional classic sources as a basis for comparison. Georg Agricola, a physician in a German mining town, was one of the first scholars to publish works on geology-related topics. Agricola’s book De re metallica (Of metals) is still read today for his detailed observation and description of 16th-century mining and ore refining processes.
Unlike scholars studying plants and animals, Renaissance geologists faced a dilemma – reconciling their observations with religious beliefs. Both Catholics and Protestants struggled with questions of religion and science. For example, discoveries of fossilized marine life in areas far from the ocean seemed to contradict the Biblical account of the creation, where God separates land and sea. Some scholars hypothesized that fossils generated within rocks; fossilized sharks’ teeth were generally thought to be caused by lightning. It was not until 1667 that a scholar named Nicolaus Steno published a treatise arguing that fossils were the remains of once-living organisms.
16th and 17th century geologists also struggled to reconcile their observations of rock strata, mountains, volcanoes, and caverns with accounts of the creation and of Noah’s flood. Scholars such as Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher and English authors William Whiston and Thomas Burnet devised fanciful but inaccurate hypotheses on the origins and age of geologic formations. It would be the work of later generations of geologists to come up with scientifically sound theories of the Earth’s age and geologic processes.
Georg Agricola. De ortu et causis subterraneorum (On the origin and cause of things subterranean). Basle: Hieronymus Froben, 1558.
This Swiss edition collects several works by Agricola, including his treatises on metals, gems and minerals, fossils, and mining and metallurgy.
Thomas Burnet. The theory of the earth. London: R. Norton for W. Kettilby, 1684-90.
Burnet issued The theory of the earth in parts over several years. Based on his interpretation of Biblical passages, Burnet argued that Noah’s flood was the result of the breaking up of subterranean bodies of water, and that the flood caused the Earth’s formerly smooth crust to collapse, forming mountains and caverns. Burnet’s book was very popular, but provoked much theological controversy in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
Athanasius Kircher. Mundus subterraneus (The subterranean world). Amsterdam: Joannes Jansson and Eizeus Weyerstraten, 1665.
Mundus subterraneus is considered the first encyclopedia of geology and includes Kircher’s theories of underground fires and springs. The book is notable for including the first physical map of the world and the first reliable map of ocean currents.