萬物簡史 第75期:敲石頭的人們(7)

The members met twice a month from Novemberuntil June, when virtually all of them went off tospend the summer doing fieldwork. These weren'tpeople with a pecuniary interest in minerals, youunderstand, or even academics for the most part,but simply gentlemen with the wealth and time toindulge a hobby at a more or less professionallevel. By 1830, there were 745 of them, and theworld would never see the like again.

從11月到次年6月，會員每月碰頭兩次，因為到這個時候，實際上所有的人都已出門，整個夏天在做野外工作。你要知道，這些人出去找礦石不是為了掙錢，在大多數(shù)情況下甚至也不是學(xué)者。它不過是既有錢又有時間的紳士在不大專業(yè)的層面上從事的一種愛好。到1830年，已經(jīng)發(fā)展到745名會員，世界上再也不會出現(xiàn)那種情況。

It is hard to imagine now, but geology excited the nineteenth century—positively gripped it—ina way that no science ever had before or would again. In 1839, when Roderick Murchisonpublished The Silurian System, a plump and ponderous study of a type of rock calledgreywacke, it was an instant bestseller, racing through four editions, even though it cost eightguineas a copy and was, in true Huttonian style, unreadable. (As even a Murchison supporterconceded, it had "a total want of literary attractiveness.") And when, in 1841, the greatCharles Lyell traveled to America to give a series of lectures in Boston, sellout audiences ofthree thousand at a time packed into the Lowell Institute to hear his tranquilizing descriptionsof marine zeolites and seismic perturbations in Campania.

這種情形在現(xiàn)在是難以想像的，但地質(zhì)學(xué)激活了19世紀(jì)的人--完全抓住了他們的注意力--這是任何科學(xué)以前沒有過，或許將來也不會有的情況。1839年，羅德里克·默奇森出版了《志留紀(jì)體系》，一本又厚又重的書，研究一種名叫雜砂巖的巖石。它頓時成為一本暢銷書，很快出了4版，雖然一冊要賣到8個幾尼，而且具有真正的赫頓風(fēng)格，即毫無可讀性。(連默奇森的支持者也承認(rèn)，它"毫無文學(xué)作品的魅力"。)而當(dāng)偉大的查爾斯·萊爾于1841年去美國，在波士頓開設(shè)一系列講座的時候，每次都有3000名聽眾擠進洛韋爾學(xué)院，靜靜地聽他描述海洋沸石和地震在坎帕尼亞引起的震動。