Date: 1831
Format: Drawn in the back of a 1830-31 field notebook
Description: A theoretical geologist dilettante offers colored glasses (i.e. vision clouded by theory) to a field geologist. The field geologist is vexed.
This and the remaining nine cartoons in this section were drawn in the back of a field notebook. They were first described and reprinted in Rudwick (1975). They are all interpreted as various satires of Principles, though some are obscure. He sketched a number of ideas before landing on the design that would become Awful Changes.
In this cartoon, De la Beche criticizes theoretical speculation in a general sense. Both geologists stand on a high promontory labelled "Theory" (maybe "The Theory"?) which overlooks a broad valley. In a pique of allegory, the theoretical geologist hides his "Theory of the Earth" behind his back, all the while proclaiming to have a better view of nature. The "tinted spectacles of theoretical supposition" (Rudwick, 1988) are a common motif in De la Beche's cartoons, but in this scene the glasses are explicitly mentioned.
The theoretical geologist wears fancy formal clothing including coattails, ill-suited to outdoor work. He is possibly a caricature of Lyell. Rudwick says he is wearing a barrister's wig (Lyell was a lawyer), though I don't see it. The practical geologist, possibly De la Beche himself (certainly a stand-in) wears simpler field gear and actually carries a hammer and pack to do real work.
The choice of "indigo" may be a specific barb towards Lyell's theories. Rudwick believes that it may refer to the color used for water in topographic maps, or alternatively the color used for limestone in geologic maps. In the first case, the cartoon would be a reference to Lyell's notion that the regular action of rivers alone is sufficient to explain the shape of any valley (such as the one in the scene) given enough time, even if the river is very small and the valley very large. He makes fun of the same idea in Cause and Effect. In the second case, the cartoon would be a reference to Lyell's view that the rocks in mountains, even granites and gneisses, began as marine sediments which were later thrust up.
For more on Lyell himself, see his entry on the biography page.
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Sources & further discussion:
First described in Rudwick, M. J. (1975). Caricature as a source for the history of science: De la Beche's anti-Lyellian sketches of 1831. Isis, 66(4), 534-560. Link [www.journals.uchicago.edu]
Also described in Rudwick, M. J. (1988). The great Devonian controversy: the shaping of scientific knowledge among gentlemanly specialists. University of Chicago Press.
Image yoinked from:
A University of Arizona course website [blc.arizona.edu]
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