Two Pillars of Stratigraphy
Contents Updated: Thursday, August 05, 1999
Baron Cuvier
Baron Cuvier realized before Queen Victoria came to the throne of England that extinction is the fate of us all. Cuvier was born in 1769 and lived his younger life before the French revolution when opportunities for young talented people not of the aristocratic class were limited. As a consequence, after completing his studies, he had to take a lowly post as a tutor in Normandy. But the French Revolution created new opportunities and Cuvier took charge of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Continuing his studies there he successively became a professor of natural history and then of anatomy. The famous mosasaurus found in 1770, which created the original scientific interest in fossils, was identified by Cuvier as an extinct marine lizard.
The spirit of the time imbued Cuvier. He was keen that the French masses should appreciate the wonders of science and nature; but he was not willing simply to wait for people deprived for centuries of mental stimuli to recognize he had something of value. He wanted to create a market for learning, to attract his audience by presenting natural history in novel and exciting ways. His solution was to practise the techniques of showmen and actors. Teaching himself to be a dramatic and persuasive lecturer, choosing analogies he knew laborers and peasants could understand, he won the working people to the thrill of discovery. He even opened his own library for their use. He also sought - and received - assistance for his endeavors from government, persuading Napoleon that he should provide museums with well conceived, visually interesting displays and should donate money for research. His imaginative ideas succeeded and Cuvier not only became a national hero, receiving his title as an honor, he also became internationally renowned.
Cuvier was one of the founders of the study of historical geology or stratigraphy. The other was an Englishman, William Smith.
Cuvier had noticed how different rock strata had different fossils in them. The topmost layers of recent deposits contained familiar bones but the deeper down he looked the less familiar they were.
Two Pillars of Stratigraphy
William Smith was a surveyor and could not fail to notice fossils in the rocks in the everyday execution of his duties. From his observations he proposed that rocks could be dated by the fossils in them, their index fossils. He catalogued them, thereby providing the first reliable geological clock which could be used for dating widely separated rocks.
Cuvier and Smith had erected the two pillars of stratigraphy: (1) normally younger rocks lie on top of older ones; (2) rocks containing the same fossils are the same age. From these beginnings the scientific study of the earth and prehistory could begin in earnest. Scholars began to look with fresh interest at the rocks, to the natural formations around them, stimulated by the works of the pioneers.
They were astonished by the huge petrified bones that were common in some strata. The Biblical deluge of Noah’s Ark was the orthodox explanation of the fossilized remains of extinct animals, but Cuvier realized it could not explain all the changes from stratum to stratum. He decided there must have been a series of such catastrophes. After each extinction God began again. The theory of catastrophes was published as A Discourse on the Revolutions of the Surface of the Globe.
Cuvier perceptively noted: whole races were extinguished leaving mere traces of their existence, which are now difficult of recognition, even by a naturalist.
Infallible Word of God
The study of fossilized bones under the rocks and their identification as extinct species were, because of prevailing religious views, controversial from the start. The Bible was regarded by many, even learned people, as being the infallible word of God and unquestionably true. Though Cuvier was much admired as a scholar his book was regarded by many in the British establishment, the ecclesiastical and political experts of the day, as dangerously radical. It contradicted the Bible! Cuvier’s scientifically observed catastrophe theory had to do battle with the dogma of Noah’s Flood.
Furthermore, according to the Church’s teaching of plenum, God had created the world complete - nothing could have been taken away or added. Dinosaur bones had been emerging from eroding rocks for longer than man had existed, testifying to the extinction of species and the evolution of new ones. Yet the Church dogma of plenum forbade such a heresy.
Religious bigotry resulted in English publishers bowdlerizing Cuvier’s book to give the impression that Cuvier was approving Noah’s deluge not proposing a radically new and more general theory challenging Church dogmata.
Moreover God’s world was thoroughly anthropocentric. Mankind’s rightful place was at the center of creation. Darwin was soon to have trouble over this and respectable paleontologists still believe it today. But a catastrophe theory must admit of the likelihood of future catastrophes eventually even sweeping away mankind - a thought inconceivable to the ecclesiastical experts.
How were species replaced after each catastrophe? Cuvier did not go so far as to advocate evolution. His idea was one of separate creations after each destruction. Evolutionary theory had to wait for Charles Darwin. But fear of confrontation with the clerics obliged Darwin to hold up publication while he sought to amass enough evidence to put the issue beyond doubt. He also spent time seeking noncontroversial examples. Only at the end of On the Origin of Species did he reveal the direction of his thoughts: light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.
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