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The Greywacke: How a Priest, a Soldier and a School Teacher Uncovered 300 Million Years of History
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE PRIZE 2022'A joyful collision of science, history and nature writing' Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep TimeAdam Sedgwick was a priest and scholar. Roderick Murchison was a retired soldier. Charles Lapworth was a schoolteacher. It was their personal and intellectual rivalry, pursued on treks through Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Devon and parts of western Russia, that revealed the narrative structure of the Paleozoic Era, the 300-million-year period during which life on Earth became recognisably itself. Nick Davidson follows in their footsteps and draws on maps, diaries, letters, field notes and contemporary accounts to bring the ideas and characters alive. But this is more than a history of geology. As we travel through some of the most spectacular scenery in Britain, it's a celebration of the sheer visceral pleasure generations of geologists have found, and continue to find, in noticing the earth beneath our feet.
280 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 13, 2021
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214 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 10, 2022
Greywacke is the Victorian term for a jumble of initially unmapped sandstone rocks found across Europe and extensively in Wales, Scotland, The Lake District and the West Country.
Trying to make sense of these rocks and how they fitted in to the grand scheme of deep time became the obsession of amateurs and professional geologists who had their personal demons and peculiarities which helped and hindered their progress in equal measures.
Nick Davison draws a beguiling picture of Adam Sedgwick, Roger Murchison and Charles Lapworth, literally hammering away in the pursuit of ordering the chaos under our feet. Sedgwick, brilliant but rheumatic and neurotic; Murchison, slapdash, self-aggrandising, patronising, and, a few years later, Lapworth, a painstaking amateur genius, contributed fairly equally to establishing the Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian periods. The former two were friends and colleagues who became estranged and while Murchison, who was wrong about many things, got the money, power, glory, honours and mountains named after him (as well as a lunar crater), Sedgwick moped about his Cambridge college and Norwich Cathedral fretting about ever publishing his findings. It took Lapworth to sort out the correct order of things helped by his study of fossilised planktonic graptolytes, sadly after the other two had died.
This story is further evidence that, scientifically, everything we know is wrong and learned societies are often hidebound and unsympathetic to people and rocks that don’t conform.
Trying to make sense of these rocks and how they fitted in to the grand scheme of deep time became the obsession of amateurs and professional geologists who had their personal demons and peculiarities which helped and hindered their progress in equal measures.
Nick Davison draws a beguiling picture of Adam Sedgwick, Roger Murchison and Charles Lapworth, literally hammering away in the pursuit of ordering the chaos under our feet. Sedgwick, brilliant but rheumatic and neurotic; Murchison, slapdash, self-aggrandising, patronising, and, a few years later, Lapworth, a painstaking amateur genius, contributed fairly equally to establishing the Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian periods. The former two were friends and colleagues who became estranged and while Murchison, who was wrong about many things, got the money, power, glory, honours and mountains named after him (as well as a lunar crater), Sedgwick moped about his Cambridge college and Norwich Cathedral fretting about ever publishing his findings. It took Lapworth to sort out the correct order of things helped by his study of fossilised planktonic graptolytes, sadly after the other two had died.
This story is further evidence that, scientifically, everything we know is wrong and learned societies are often hidebound and unsympathetic to people and rocks that don’t conform.
February 10, 2024
I picked this book up in the library due to the curious name and review on the back cover “invaluable addition to the genre of historical geology”.
I found it hard going given I have at best school boy understanding of geology but the author explains the key topics well. Is really interesting thinking back to a time when the world wasn’t as known as it is today & the politics involved in discovery.
I found it hard going given I have at best school boy understanding of geology but the author explains the key topics well. Is really interesting thinking back to a time when the world wasn’t as known as it is today & the politics involved in discovery.
March 31, 2022
Telling the story of the three scholars who gave us the names for five geological periods, The Greywacke unlocks for a general audience a historical episode so far consigned to more technical literature. Read my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2022...
August 29, 2025
A wonderful romp through an exciting episode of 29th century geology. Like other good book on the geological pursuits of the time, this is a tale as much about the personalities as the science.
Come for the rocks and stay for the rivalries, or vice versa depending on your tastes!
Come for the rocks and stay for the rivalries, or vice versa depending on your tastes!
September 27, 2023
On one hand, this is the story of how many of the older geological periods of the Phanerozoic: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian and Permian, were first recognised in the 19th century and got their names. More immediately and interestingly, it is also a memoir of three pioneering British geologists: Sedgwick, Murchison and Lapworth, and their part in two of the most notorious geological controversies in the development of British geological knowledge. These were the stratigraphical subdivision of the Lower Palaeozoic in Britain (encompassing the mudrocks, sandstones and limestones of Wales, the Lake District and the Southern Uplands of Scotland) and, consequently, worldwide, and the stratigraphical relationships of the rocks found in northern Scotland, especially those of the north-west Highlands. The book also explains something of the early work of the British Geological Survey (then known as the Geological Survey of Great Britain), including some early examples of fraught relationships between senior officers of the GSGB/BGS (Murchison was the second director of the survey) and academic geologists.
Carefully and extensively researched (including visits to some of the key localities), and clearly and thoughtfully written, this book is a very readable account of three very disparate scientific personalities. Davidson is not a formally-trained geologist but he knows the subject well enough to communicate the concepts clearly. The level of technical detail seems about right – enough to explain the problems that these geologists were facing (and, eventually, solving) but not, I think, to discourage the non-geologist reader. There are a very few stumbles over lithological nomenclature: on p. 40 and p. 237, ‘shale’ is a fissile mudstone, not a ‘fine-grained mixture of mud and limestone’. The short glossary is not entirely reliable: gneiss is generally coarser-grained than schist, I would say, and anyway texture is a more important distinguishing feature of these rock types than is grain size. But these quibbles do not affect the substance of the narrative.
The book describes, through the career of Murchison, how social standing, networking and wealth can combine with ambition, self-belief and self-promotion to lead to preferment. Arguably, Murchison was the least able scientist of these three geologists, but was someone who used rapid survey and ‘broad-brush observation’, combined with well-developed organisational and communication skills, to, mostly, good effect. History seems to show that he was not always the most diligent observer, and in some cases, apparently allowed his preconceptions to over-influence his interpretation.
The brilliant Sedgwick was hindered as a research scientist by his need to earn a living, as a university professor and a cleric. Coupled with an apparent tendency to be distracted (and in later life, bouts of ill-health), he didn’t share Murchison’s facility for writing – or self-promotion. But history has been kinder to his scientific interpretations.
Lapworth came on the scene somewhat later, bringing his meticulous research into graptolite faunas in the Southern Uplands to fruition only after Murchison and Sedgwick had died. He was, perhaps, the most able of the three, a careful observer, coming to the rocks with, it seems, a very open mind, capable of seeing the big picture — and of communicating it. Also, Davidson tells us, he was a capable teacher, and who was able to continue his research and writing while continuing with his professorial duties.
The book’s title, ‘The Greywacke’, alludes to the use of this term in the early 19th century, as a ‘catch-all’ to describe the Lower Palaeozoic mudrock-sandstone terrains of Britain. There is a useful final chapter, serving as a postscript, on the formation of ‘greywacke’, as the term is used in the sense of the more modern term of ‘wacke’, to denote a very poorly sorted muddy sandstone — and the origin of the concept of turbidity currents some 80 years after Sedgwick and Murchison died. They apparently had no idea of how major elements of the sequences they mapped were formed.
As a one-time professional geologist, I commend this book to anyone who is interested in the history of geoscience. There are other books that have described the same geological controversies and their protagonists, but I doubt that any are as readable as this.
Carefully and extensively researched (including visits to some of the key localities), and clearly and thoughtfully written, this book is a very readable account of three very disparate scientific personalities. Davidson is not a formally-trained geologist but he knows the subject well enough to communicate the concepts clearly. The level of technical detail seems about right – enough to explain the problems that these geologists were facing (and, eventually, solving) but not, I think, to discourage the non-geologist reader. There are a very few stumbles over lithological nomenclature: on p. 40 and p. 237, ‘shale’ is a fissile mudstone, not a ‘fine-grained mixture of mud and limestone’. The short glossary is not entirely reliable: gneiss is generally coarser-grained than schist, I would say, and anyway texture is a more important distinguishing feature of these rock types than is grain size. But these quibbles do not affect the substance of the narrative.
The book describes, through the career of Murchison, how social standing, networking and wealth can combine with ambition, self-belief and self-promotion to lead to preferment. Arguably, Murchison was the least able scientist of these three geologists, but was someone who used rapid survey and ‘broad-brush observation’, combined with well-developed organisational and communication skills, to, mostly, good effect. History seems to show that he was not always the most diligent observer, and in some cases, apparently allowed his preconceptions to over-influence his interpretation.
The brilliant Sedgwick was hindered as a research scientist by his need to earn a living, as a university professor and a cleric. Coupled with an apparent tendency to be distracted (and in later life, bouts of ill-health), he didn’t share Murchison’s facility for writing – or self-promotion. But history has been kinder to his scientific interpretations.
Lapworth came on the scene somewhat later, bringing his meticulous research into graptolite faunas in the Southern Uplands to fruition only after Murchison and Sedgwick had died. He was, perhaps, the most able of the three, a careful observer, coming to the rocks with, it seems, a very open mind, capable of seeing the big picture — and of communicating it. Also, Davidson tells us, he was a capable teacher, and who was able to continue his research and writing while continuing with his professorial duties.
The book’s title, ‘The Greywacke’, alludes to the use of this term in the early 19th century, as a ‘catch-all’ to describe the Lower Palaeozoic mudrock-sandstone terrains of Britain. There is a useful final chapter, serving as a postscript, on the formation of ‘greywacke’, as the term is used in the sense of the more modern term of ‘wacke’, to denote a very poorly sorted muddy sandstone — and the origin of the concept of turbidity currents some 80 years after Sedgwick and Murchison died. They apparently had no idea of how major elements of the sequences they mapped were formed.
As a one-time professional geologist, I commend this book to anyone who is interested in the history of geoscience. There are other books that have described the same geological controversies and their protagonists, but I doubt that any are as readable as this.
December 19, 2024
Cast your mind back to the early nineteenth century when two titans of geology — the ambitious, social climbing ex-soldier Roderick Murchison and the mild-mannered cleric Adam Sedgwick sought to map the confusing jumble of rocks that was Wales. Back in the day, everything older than the Old Red Sandstone was a muddle called the Greywacke, and this is the story about how it gave up its secrets. In the end, Murchison’s Silurian trumped Sedgwick’s Cambrian, and the two once close colleagues fell out spectacularly. It was only resolved in the next generation when an even more mild-mannered schoolteacher, Charles Lapworth, came along and discovered the Ordovician that sat between them. This is a classic piece of popular history of science (I am reminded of The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate by Toby Appel, another tale about how two close friends fell out over scientific minutiae). The author — a documentary filmmaker and outdoorsman — has done his work with incredible diligence, not only digging into rarely seen archives but tramping the same fells and rills as his protagonists. This could so easily have been a yarn about dead white blokes bashing rocks. That it is so much more is a testament to the author’s skill. An immensely satisfying read. Shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2022 (DISCLAIMER: I also have a dog in that fight).
October 15, 2022
I first noticed this in the bookshop because of the unusual title, and discovered that greywacke was a general word used to describe rocks which looked similar, before the geological periods had been established. I was interested in geology as a ten year old, and had a small fossil collection, so by reading this I was returning to a very early interest. I also wanted a book which was from a completely different genre to my usual choices.
Despite the diagrams scattered throughout the book, I did find some of the ideas difficult to visualise, but to find out about the theories and discoveries taking place in the world of geology in the 19th century (especially against the backdrop of the tensions between Darwin's theories and a literal understanding of Genesis) was interesting. I tend to go for the human stories rather than the theoretical or scientific, so this was what I focused on, but I did get a bit bogged down halfway through by the land heaves, the inclines and faults!
Despite the diagrams scattered throughout the book, I did find some of the ideas difficult to visualise, but to find out about the theories and discoveries taking place in the world of geology in the 19th century (especially against the backdrop of the tensions between Darwin's theories and a literal understanding of Genesis) was interesting. I tend to go for the human stories rather than the theoretical or scientific, so this was what I focused on, but I did get a bit bogged down halfway through by the land heaves, the inclines and faults!
March 13, 2023
A Rewarding Read
I enjoy reading about the past and this book delivers. The descriptions of travels in remote regions are excellent. I'm not sure at the end if I now know what the greyywacke is but this doesn't matter. A good book!
I enjoy reading about the past and this book delivers. The descriptions of travels in remote regions are excellent. I'm not sure at the end if I now know what the greyywacke is but this doesn't matter. A good book!
January 10, 2023
Lovely. A good mix of science and humanity and history, not least of travel. Recommended.
Read
April 14, 2023A pedestrian's 'Controversy in Victorian Geology'. He claims to be moved by the landscape and men, but I didn't feel that. Still, I appreciate the distillation of the subject.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews