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Chapter Nine Rocks, Reverence, and Religion The champion of Geology[,] a sickly consumptive looking little fellow, insisted upon the Science of Geology corroborating & proving all the statements and facts set forth in the Bible in relation to the creation of the world &c and didn’t seem satisfied until we all admitted the truth of this assertion. I saw there was fire in the little fellow so I denied it. —D. C. Smith (one of Amos Eaton’s students), 1835 The overlap between geology and religion constituted an important trading zone for ideas in early American culture.1 New discoveries in the earth sciences and interpretations of the Bible not only stimulated public interest in the history of the Earth but also catered to a growing multiform discourse on the meaning of the American landscape. Scientific and religious belief systems sometimes clashed over specific claims, though far more often these two competing forms of cultural authority were understood to complement each other as forms of knowledge about nature. The boundary between professional and amateur scientist had not yet been erected; mechanisms that would later partially insulate technical from lay discourse (such as publication in peer-reviewed professional journals) had yet to be developed. Benjamin Silliman, the editor of the country’s preeminent periodical containing technical reports in geology, for example, was himself a compromised gatekeeper . In his editorial supplement to an 1833 revision of British agriculturalist Robert Bakewell’s widely respected 1813 text An Introduction to Geology, Silliman blunted the author’s apparently atheistic commitment to an Old Earth by cajoling his American readers with these remarks: “In a country like this, where the moral feeling of the people is identified with reverence for the scriptures, the questions are often agitated:—When did the great series of geological events hap- Rocks, Reverence, and Religion 197 pen? If the six days of creation were insufficient in time, and the events cannot all be referred to a deluge, to what period and to what state of things shall we assign them? This is a fair topic of enquiry, and demands a satisfactory answer.” After some further temporizing, Silliman reengaged with the hard nub of his task by taking a practical, almost sociological, slant: “The subject of geology is possessed of such high interest, that it will not be permitted to slumber; it will proceed with increasing energy and success; a great number of powerful minds and immense research are now employed upon it, and many collateral branches of science are made tributary to its progress.” With diplomatic, if not entirely candid, aplomb, Silliman continued: “Its [geology’s] conclusions have been supposed to jar with scriptural history: this is contemplated with alarm by some, and with satisfaction by a few; but there is no cause for either state of feeling: the supposed disagreement is not real; it is only apparent.” Silliman concludes, with a kind of bravado that dismisses the key point of contention without really explaining how he can accept its implications and remain such a faithful Christian: “It is founded upon the popular mistake, that, excepting the action of a deluge and of ordinary causes still in operation, this world was formed as we now see it, and that all its immense and various deposits were made in a very short period of time. Both of these are fundamental errors, which have misled both the learned and the unlearned, and are still extensively prevalent.”2 Silliman’s mentor, Rev. Timothy Dwight, had foreseen the challenge that geology might pose to the tenets of established Christianity. Though he was supportive of the study of nature, and shared (and perhaps helped to nurture) Silliman’s expectation that knowledge revealed through both geological investigations and contemplation of the scriptures would ultimately prove to be harmonious, Dwight in his own time had placed the burden of valid knowledge outcomes firmly on the scientist’s intentions. One historian of American religion frames Dwight’s caveat succinctly: “Scientific research was better carried out . . . with an attitude of trust in God’s word and humility before his creation.”3 Thus, over the course of just a single generation, the balance of authority shifted rapidly from adherence to a religious orthodoxy toward acceptance of a scientific one, at least among those well-intentioned and earnestly devout practitioners of American natural history. Great Awakenings Historians have long wondered about the conditions that fostered the birth of utopian cults (such as Mother Ann Lee’s Shakers) and the spread of intense religious revivals...

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