1. &quot;James Hutton.&quot; Web. 10 Apr 2011. <http://ncse.com/image/james-hutton>. James Hutton is a Scottish geologist born in 1726. He studied medicine and farming, in 1768 he set up his own business producing sal ammoniac from coal soot. Hutton investigated methods of coalmining and canal building, conducted experiments with chemicals and collected fossils. He was also concerned by how marine fosslis reached mountain tops.

2. &quot;marine fossils.&quot; Web. 10 Apr 2011. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamantine/1804254673/>. Not only Hutton wondered how did marine fossils reach mountain tops, many others did as well. Those who believed they had an explanation fell into two groups. Neptunists and Plutonists.

3. &quot;Melting ice increase sea levels.&quot; Web. 10 Apr 2011. <http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/melting-polar-ice-raise-sea-levels-4-feet-2100.php>. The Neptunists believed that everything on Earth could be removed from its place and deposited somewhere else due to the rising and falling of sea levels and during global floods.

4. &quot;volcanoes.&quot; Web. 10 Apr 2011. <http://www.solarnavigator.net/volcanoes.htm>. Opposing the Neptunists were the Plutonists. They noted that volcanoes changed the face of the Earth. The Plutonists raised questions like where did the water go if it wasn’t a flood and were not able to really explain how fossils got up there.

5. &quot;Soil erosion.&quot; Web. 10 Apr 2011. <http://www.scienceclarified.com/El-Ex/Erosion.html>. Hutton was able to figure out the soil was created by the erosion of rocks and particles, they were continually washed away by streams and rivers and deposited somewhere else. However, there had to be an additional process which will keep the cycle going. He came up with a conclusion, fossils on mountain tops were not lifted up there by floods nor volcanoes. Instead, they went up there themselves.

6. https://mail.google.com/a/aucegypt.edu/?AuthEventSource=SSO#inbox Geology became a very fascinating subject for people during the XIXth century, and especially in Great Britain. That interest led to the creation of the “ Geological Society “, in 1807, in London, which became an important institution in the country.