ON THE ANTIQUITY OF “SEDIMENTATION” AND HYDROLOGY (WITH SOME MORAL CONCLUSIONS)

The ancient Greek philosophers held very modern views on sedimentation. Democritus discovered shape sorting of pebbles on beaches; Aristotle worked out the mechanical aspects of pebble abrasion; Plato produced truly post-Huttonian descriptions of erosion and deposition around Athens, and he also brought forth, 1900 years before Palissy, the correct, pluvial, theory for the origin of springs and rivers. Since some leading modern physicists have rediscovered the fruitfulness of certain basic principles of early Greek scientific thought, perhaps geologists should also look into it.