"The first detailed account of the reconstruction of prehuman geohistory, Martin J.S. Rudwick takes readers from the post-Napoleonic Restoration in Europe to the early years of Britain's Victorian age, chronicling the staggering discoveries geologists made during the period: the uncovering of the first dinosaur fossils, the glacial theory of the last Ice Age, and the meaning of igneous rocks, among others. Ultimately, Rudwick reveals geology to be the first of the sciences to investigate the historical dimension of nature."--Jacket.