Martin J. S. Rudwick

Acclaimed everywhere as a masterpiece in the history of science, The Great Devonian Controversy recreates a scientific debate of the 1830s and 1840s about a dating of certain puzzling rock strata and fossils. -- from back cover.

"An absorbing history of changing views of what fossils are and how they contribute to an understanding of the history of the earth. Rudwick makes ample use of primary sources ranging in time from the first book with illustrations of fossils (1565) to O.C. Marsh's study of horse evolution in the 1870s. He documents the first attempts to collect groups of fossils, determine whether they were the remains of organisms, relate the fossils to their surrounding rock strata, and integrate fossil evidence into the concept of evolution"--Back cover.

Rudwick tells the gripping story of the gradual realization that the Earth's history has not only been unimaginably long but also astonishingly eventful in utterly unexpected ways.