Chapter 5 - Mother Earth

Summary

The 1830s was a golden age for geology in Britain, in which at least three decades of commitment to patient observation, inductive reasoning, and fieldwork had led to a newfound public confidence for the science. Historians have long argued that a cult of masculinity emerged in response to this climate: physically and intellectually robust, the ‘gentleman geologist’ alone could be trusted to make reliable observations of the Earth without lapsing into theological or evolutionary speculation. Focussing on the work of three women geologists – Maria Graham, Charlotte Murchison, and Maria Hack – this chapter argues against this male history of geology. Paying attention to the deeply intertwined labours of male and female geologists in this period reveals that gender was a tool in a serious debate about the role of the body – of the emotions and the senses – in scientific observation. Was it possible, geologists asked, to apprehend the natural world entirely unencumbered by emotion, attachment, or the vagaries of the senses? What kinds of bodies could encounter the Earth in its most extreme guises and still achieve the right philosophical perspective and detachment?