The Culture of English Geology, 1815-1851: A Science Revealed Through Its Collecting (review)

Simon J. Knell begins his examination of the culture of English geology with the publication in 1815 of William Smith's map, the first to follow stratigraphic principles. He concludes with the 1851 opening of the Museum of Practical Geology, an institution dedicated to displaying the fossils discovered by the National Survey. Along the way, his examination of an impressive array of archival materials and his discussion of the social, political, and scientific aspects of collecting reveal the development of geology from a provincial pastime into a national science. He is certainly not the first historian to trace geology through its early years, but his attention to communities of practice and discourse, to the contributions of regional geologists and societies, and to the material culture of the fossil deepens our understanding of geology in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Knell claims that most historians of geology have been "influenced directly by the gentlemen geologists themselves; this is geology as these men wished us to see it— history which centres on the savant and the published idea. It raises the question: what has been obscured by this process?" (307). In striving to answer this question, he illuminates much of what has been obscured, although he disappoints in not drawing the conclusions that some of his more intriguing details invite.

Knell aims to dissociate geology from London and the key figures so often at the center of the history of the science. He follows instead the collective activities of the regional philosophical societies, primarily those of Yorkshire, and focuses on "motives, methods, and interactions" (xiv) rather than personal or institutional biography. He draws on letters, museum registers, and committee minutes, as well as publications such as John Phillips's Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire (1829), to present a close analysis of the social relationships and tensions that facilitated or frustrated the societies' scientific goals. He argues that much of the advancement of geology occurred in the intellectual and material exchanges that busied these societies. In addition to sponsoring lectures and publishing papers, each society prized its collection of fossils and minerals, collections whose significance increased as fossils were recognized as representative of scientific facts, not simply intriguing objets. Society collections were thus valued as scientific resources superior even to work in the field: a museum allowed the close study of a range of fossils from multiple strata.

Indeed, Knell's investigation of the culture of English geology is at its best when he examines the society collections. His discussion ranges from the details of acquisition to the philosophy of display. For instance, he discusses at length an extraordinary plesiosaur skeleton found near Whitby in 1841 and offered for purchase for the astounding sum of £500. The Whitby Society was eager to acquire the fossil and felt a particular right to do so as it had been found in the society's neighborhood. However, the sellers reacted negatively to the superior tone of George Young, who negotiated on the society's behalf, and they spitefully sent the specimen to Cambridge. Knell's treatment of this example reveals much about the value placed on acquisition and the role of personality in that process.

He emphasizes the impact of individual personality on display, as well, in his discussion of the Scarborough Museum. The epitome of Smith's "belief in a science wedded to the concept of the museum" (70), it features a rotunda whose design allows a circular arrangement of fossils that guides the visitor through geological time. Knell takes the reader beyond the simple fact of the museum, presenting it as the intersection of local politics, society personalities, and, above all, scientific principle. In museums like the one in Scarborough, geology slowly crystallized into a national science.

While Knell discusses many men and women who excavated, sold...