William Johnson Sollas Quotes

4 Sourced Quotes

If catastrophic geology had at times pushed Nature to almost indecent extremes of haste, uniformitarian geology, on the other hand, had erred in the opposite direction, and pictured Nature when she was 'young and wantoned [sic] in her prime', as moving with the lame sedateness of advanced middle age. It became necessary, therefore, as Dr. [Samuel] Haughton expresses it, 'to hurry up the phenomena'.

William Johnson Sollas

The human mind, dwelling on such considerations as these [evolution of the world], seems at times to have been affected by a sur-excitation of the imagination, and a consequent paralysis of the understanding, which led to a refusal to measure geological time by years at all, or to reckon by anything less than "eternities."

William Johnson Sollas

Our science [geology] has become evolutional, and in the transformation has grown more comprehensive: her petty parochial days are done, she is drawing her provinces closer around her, and is fusing them together into a united and single commonwealth — the science of the earth.

William Johnson Sollas

A physicist studying geology is by definition a geologist.

William Johnson Sollas

William Johnson Sollas

William Johnson Sollas

Creative Commons

Born: May 30, 1849

Died: October 20, 1936 (aged 87)

Bio: William Johnson Sollas was a British geologist and anthropologist. After studying at the City of London School, the Royal College of Chemistry and the Royal School of Mines he matriculated to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was awarded First Class Honours in geology.

William Johnson Sollas on Wikipedia

William Johnson Sollas works on Wikisource

Suggest an edit or a new quote

British Scientist Quotes

Scientist Quotes

19th-century Scientist Quotes