Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
| Online Publication Date: 05 Nov 2007
Peale's 1799 Theory of the Earth
Peale's 1799 Theory of the Earth
Page Range: 51 – 55
In 1799, as an outgrowth of his museum in Philadelphia and in conjunction with his interest in public education, C. W. Peale gave a series of lectures. Most were on animals, particularly birds, but the first part of his first lecture included a theory of the earth, hitherto unpublished. Peale suggested that attraction and repulsion by electricity generated by the sun resulted in a varying orbit and speed of rotation for the earth. This electric charge was responsible for the Deluge of Noah. The subsequent changes in the Earth's orbit explained the seemingly long life spans of the early generations mentioned in the bible.
Buffetaut, Eric, 1987. A short history of vertebrate palaeontology. Croom Helm, London, Sydney.
Fryxell, Fritioff, 1962, Albert Charles Peale, pioneer geologist of the Hayden Survey: Annals of Wyoming, October 1962: 3-19.
Howard, R. W., 1975. The Dawnseekers: The first history of American paleontology: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York and London.
Miller, L. B., 1981. Charles Willson Peale as history painter: The Exhumation of the Mastodon: The American Art Journal 13: 47-68.
Peale, C. W., 1800, Introduction to a course of lectures on Natural History delivered in the University of Pennsylvania, November 16, 1799: Printed by Zachariah Poulson Junior, Philadelphia. [This is reprinted on p. 261-263 of volume 2 of "The selected papers of Charles Willson Peale and his family" Lillian B. Miller, editor, 1988, Yale University Press, New Haven].
Peale, Rembrandt, 1803, An Historical Disquitation on the Mammoth, or, Great American Incognitum, an Extinct, Immense, Carniverous Animal whose Fossil Remains have been found in North America: Printed for E. Lawrence by C. Mercier, London. [This is reprinted on p. 543-579 of Miller, 1988].
Powell, H. F., 1925, Tercentary history of Maryland: volume 4: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago and Baltimore.
Sellers, C. C., 1969, Charles Willson Peale: Scribners, New York.
Sellers, C. C., 1980, Mr. Peal's Museum: Charles Willson Peale and the first popular museum of natural science and art: W. W. Norton & Co., New York.
Simpson, G. G., 1942, The first natural history museum in America: Science 96: 261-263.
Stanton, William, 1975, The great United States Exploration Expedition of 1838-1842. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Wells, J. W., 1963, Coral growth and geochronometry: Nature 197: 948-950.