History of Geology

But this fact is not enough to explain the delayed development of our science. In ancient times, the information on this subject have been too low, and speaking of the gradual development of geology and paleontology, we can even completely ignore the views of the ancient world. Of course, in the history of science of the Greeks and Romans have meaning even all traces of geological knowledge, but if you want to show when a more or less solidified the modern conception of the matter and under the influence of any circumstances, from ancient history will result in only a few, and it provided little on the subsequent development of science only the inhibitory effect. With high probability we can assume that ancient knowledge in geology were not so small as it seems to us the surviving writings of the natural sciences. To think that the destruction of ancient literature was saved very little of that relates to our subject. Jewish and Egyptian legend about the creation of the world is a lot of positive data: they can only come from a people who watched the nature and draw conclusions from their observations. Famous Places of Herodotus, in which he talks about how the Egyptians explain Nile sediments, show that this remarkable people in their geological knowledges gone much further other peoples of antiquity. It may well be that many of the decayed bundles of papyrus that had not yet read, embody the same unexpected and interesting information about our science, what they are obliged to many other areas of knowledge. However, the further development of geological studies of Egyptians had only through the effects, it is only insofar as they affected the views of Jews, Greeks and Romans. Currently, almost all believe that the few geological concepts that we find among the Romans and Greeks, were created under the influence of the civilized peoples who inhabited the valley of the Euphrates and the Nile. Such is the nature of teaching is mythical Pythagoras and his famous school. He argued that the appearance of the earth is constantly changing, which in some places land falls into the sea, while others pulled out of it, that volcanoes periodically are in a state of rest and activity, etc.