HUTTON, JAMES Scottish geologist, was born in Edinburgh on June 3, 1726. He qualified as a doctor of medicine, studying in Edinburgh and Paris, but turned to practical agriculture, in which he made many improvements. In 1768 he retired, and from then until his death (March 26, 1797) he lived in Edinburgh, devoting himself to scientific pursuits.
At that time geology in any proper sense of the term did not exist. Mineralogy, however, had made considerable progress. But Hutton had conceived larger ideas than were entertained by the mineralogists of his day. He desired to trace back the origin of the various minerals and rocks, and thus to arrive at some clear understanding of the history of the earth. For many years he continued to study the subject. At last, in the spring of the year 1785, he communicated his views to the recently established Royal Society of Edinburgh in a paper entitled Theory of the Earth, or an Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dis solution and Restoration of Land upon the Globe. In this work the doctrine is expounded that geology is not cosmogony, but must confine itself to the study of the materials of the earth ; that everywhere evidence may be seen that the present rocks of the earth's surface have been in great part formed out of the waste of older rocks; that these materials having been laid down under the sea were there consolidated under great pressure, and were subsequently disrupted and upheaved by the expansive power of subterranean heat ; that during these convulsions veins and masses of molten rock were injected into the rents of the dis located strata; that every portion of the upraised land, as soon as exposed to the atmosphere, is subject to decay; and that this decay must tend to advance until the whole of the land has been worn away and laid down on the sea-floor, whence future up heavals will once more raise the consolidated sediments into new land. In some of these broad and bold generalizations Hutton was anticipated by the Italian geologists; but to him belongs the credit of having first perceived their mutual relations, and com bined them in a luminous coherent theory based upon observation.
It was not merely the earth to which Hutton directed his at tention. He had long studied the changes of the atmosphere. The same volume in which his Theory of the Earth appeared contained also a Theory of Rain, which was read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1784. He contended that the amount of moisture which the air can retain in solution increases with augmentation of temperature, and, therefore, that on the mixture of two masses of air of different temperatures a portion of the moisture must be condensed and appear in visible form. He investigated the avail able data regarding rainfall and climate in different regions of the globe, and came to the conclusion that the rainfall is everywhere regulated by the humidity of the air on the one hand, and the causes which promote mixtures of different aerial currents in the higher atmosphere on the other.
His other works include : Dissertations on different Subjects in Natural Philosophy (1792), in which he discussed the nature of matter, fluidity, cohesion, light, heat and electricity, and An In vestigation of the Principles of Knowledge, and of the Progress of Reason—from Sense to Science and Philosophy. His closing years were devoted to the extension and republication of his Theory of the Earth, of which two volumes appeared in 1795. A portion of the ms. of a third volume, which had been given to the Geological Society of London by Leonard Horner, was edited by A. Geikie in Five years after Hutton's death John Playfair published a volume, Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth, in which he gave an admirable summary of Hutton's theory, with numerous additional illustrations and arguments.
See also his Biographical Account of James Hutton (i797), publ. in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. v. (1805).