Before volcanoes became ordinary

Abstract

AbstractVolcanic phenomena, frequently treated as ‘accidental’ in eighteenth-century science, acquired ‘ordinary’ status with the formulation during the earlier part of the nineteenth century of comprehensive systems of heat-driven global dynamics (such as those of Élie de Beaumont and Lyell). This essay identifies some reasons lying behind the predilection within early modern science toward the classification of volcanoes as accidents. Generic terms for volcanoes were absent in ancient Greek and Roman literature; ancient authors tended to address volcanic eruptions individually in terms of locality or place. Habitual focus on geographical specificity persisted even after the introduction during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of terminology recognizing volcanoes as distinct entities. An ‘uncommon’ status of volcanoes was supported not only by geographical circumstance (especially for Northern Europeans situated far from sites of volcanic action), but also by truisms widely accepted in chemical and mineralogical thought linking fire with destruction and confusion, in contrast to water's association with organization and order. In early efforts to generalize the Earth's constitution and development, explanatory theories based on constant and sustained action tended to be preferred. In these circumstances aqueous agency appeared generally efficacious, in contrast to volcanic fires, assumed to be local, shallow and ephemeral.