Title: The seashell on the mountaintop : a story of science, sainthood, and the humble genius who discovered a new history of the earth /
Authors: Cutler, A.
Publisher: Dutton,
Year: 2003
Subjects: Steno, Nicolaus.; Steno, Nicolaus,; Steno, Nicolaus,; Catholic Church Clergy Biography.; Science; History, 17th Century; Geology; Clergy; Geology History; Scientists Denmark Biography.; Denmark
Abstract: The tale of a seventeenth-century scientist-turned-priest who forever changed our understanding of the Earth and created a new field of science. It was an ancient puzzle: How did the fossils of seashells find their way far inland, sometimes high up into the mountains? Fossils only made sense in a world old enough to form them, and in the seventeenth century, few people could imagine such a thing--the Old Testament laid out Earth's timescale very clearly. A revolution was in the making, however, and it was started by the brilliant and enigmatic Nicholas Steno, who explored beyond the pages of the Bible, looking directly at the clues left in the layers of the Earth. With his groundbreaking answer to the fossil question, Steno would not only confound the religious and scientific thinking of his own time, he would set the stage for the modern science that came after him.--From publisher description.
Contents: Pilgrims -- Seashells -- Chaos -- Anatomist -- Testimony of things -- Tongues of stone -- Secret knots -- Testing the waters -- Conversion -- Layer by layer -- De Solido -- Six faces of Tuscany -- Shell game -- Heaven and Earth -- Vain speculation -- Bishop -- World-makers -- New history of the earth -- The Saint.