The Dragon Seekers: How an extraordinary circle of fossilists discovered the
dinosaurs and paved the way for Darwin by Christopher McGowan, Perseus,
$26, ISBN 0738202827
DOES every science have its heroic age? Geologists certainly think so: theirs
spanned the first 50 years of the 19th century, when geology was born as a
rigorous and essentially modern science. And historians agree. Of course, the
science had really been gestating for more than a century, but extraordinary
characters suddenly threw their energies into exploring the past. WilliamBuckland, Roderick Murchison, Charles Lyell and Adam Sedgwick are people we
still celebrate.
In the 1810s…
