Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick (March 22, 1785 – January 27, 1873) was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale and later the Cambrian period. The latter proposal was based on work which he did on Welsh rock strata.

Disagreement with Darwin

For one summer of his work in Wales which was to lead to this controversy, Sedgwick made a fateful choice of field assistant: a young Cambridge graduate named Charles Darwin. Darwin had passed his examinations for the Bachelor of Arts degree in January 1831, and began attending Sedgwick's geology lectures, which he found fascinating. That summer, the two men explored the rocks of north Wales; Darwin got a "crash course" in field geology from Sedgwick, an experience that would stand him in good stead over the next five years, on the round-the-world voyage of HMS Beagle. During this voyage, Darwin sent rocks and fossils from South America back to Sedgwick, as well as descriptions of the geology of South America. These impressed Sedgwick, who wrote in a letter to Darwin's family:

Related Topics:
Charles Darwin - Bachelor of Arts - HMS Beagle - South America

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He is doing admirably in S. America & has already sent home a Collection above all praise. -- It was the best thing in the world for him that he went out on the Voyage of Discovery...

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In November 1835, before Darwin had returned to England, Sedgwick read some of Darwin's work on South American geology to the Geological Society of London. This greatly improved Darwin's reputation as a scientist; he was inducted into the Society shortly after his return. The two stayed friends until Sedgwick's death, but Sedgwick was upset and disappointed by Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. After reading The Origin of Species, Sedgwick candidly wrote to Darwin on November 24, 1859:

Related Topics:
Evolution - Natural selection - The Origin of Species - November 24 - 1859

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"If I did not think you a good tempered & truth loving man I should not tell you that. . . I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly; parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow; because I think them utterly false & grievously mischievous-- You have deserted-- after a start in that tram-road of all solid physical truth-- the true method of induction. . . "

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However despite this difference of opinion, the two men remained friendly until Sedgwick's death.

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