By the beginning of the nineteenth-century, the science of geology could provide a compelling account of the formation of the earth. Instead of describing the globe as a ruined monument, defaced by prehistoric ­ and God-given ­ cataclysms, geologists referred to the continuing action of natural forces. They invoked earthquakes and volcanoes, not divine intervention, in their explanations.
The doctrine of uniformitarianism was in the vanguard of this thinking. Its adherents emphasised the gradual nature of change. They rejected the dramatic snap-shot history of the catastrophists, and presented instead a slow-motion movie long enough to show the effects of wind and rain.
