George Bellas Greenough (1778–1855): a lawyer in geologist's clothes

Abstract

George Bellas Greenough (1778–1855), co-founder and first President of the Geological Society of London, was less an original researcher but rather a most diligent gatherer of little pieces of information, which he compiled in numerous notebooks. His geological ideas had been greatly influenced by the German professor Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), an admirer of Jean-Andre de Luc (1727–1817). Probably, Greenough's most important published contributions to geology were his annual addresses, which he gave to the Geological Society in his function as the Society's president, discussing critically the previous year's scientific results. In these speeches, rhetoric brilliance — owing to his training as a lawyer — added to the weight of his official office. Among the topics which interested him most was the question of ‘central heat’ as prerequisite for the generation of larger amounts of magma, and the question of rapid ‘elevation’ of land by earthquakes and its implication for a dynamic Earth. Both phenomena Greenough found exceedingly hard to accept. His private papers, letters and notebooks, most of them held at the library of University College London, give insight into Greenough's personality, motivation and geological views.