James Hutton

Thoroughly revised and expanded from the 2012 edition (twice the length, almost double the number of pictures) this book pays tribute to the man and his diverse works and achievements. It is published as a forerunner to the celebrations planned for Hutton's tercentenary in 2026. James Hutton (1726-97), forever remembered as the founder of modern geology, was a man ahead of his time. He saw the natural world around him as a work in progress, shaped by the processes of erosion, denudation and the 'continuity of Nature's operations'. Travelling extensively across the country he 'poked his nose into every ditch and riverbed' to observe the rocks that built the land over which he journeyed. He developed a grand Theory of the Earth in which he tried to make sense of a lifetime of observation and deduction about the way in which our planet functions. A leading figure in the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment, a movement that placed Scotland at the head of nations in their appreciation and understanding of the arts and sciences, he was also an innovative farmer, successful entrepreneur and a man with endless intellectual curiosity.