Aug 10, 2021
"The result of this physical inquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning, -no prospect of an end." -James Hutton
James Hutton (1726 - 1797) is considered the founder of modern geology. A Scottish farmer and naturalist, Hutton intuited the immense scale of Earth’s age through observation, upending the more common view of a young Earth. He was the first to articulate the awed sensation of beyond-human scales of time.
Two hundred years later, the writer John McPhee gave it a name: Deep Time.
From our current exhibition, "Seeing Coal."
James Hutton. Theory of the Earth, with Proofs and Illustrations (Edinburgh, 1795).