The Floating Egg: Episodes in the Making of Geology [Paperback]

The Northeast of England might seem a limited base for insights into the discovery of Earth's "deep history", its extinct inhabitants, the geography of the world and meteorites, but Roger Osborne draws out a fascinating story from his home ground. Such is the rich cultural, economic and scientific history of Britain, founded on a uniquely varied geological substrate, that even relatively small regions like Yorkshire and the Northeast have rich and "deep histories" just waiting to be re-excavated by a skilled and trained "miner" like Osborne.

Using his geological background to full advantage, Osborne digs into the past to recover fragments of historical and scientific documents that authenticate his stories. Their language sets an appropriate tone to support the introduction of perfectly plausible fictional characters. Encompassing a wide array of sources, from seemingly unpromising geological strata and the mining of alum, or the discovery of fossil reptiles and ammonites from Jurassic age sea-cliffs, through hyena bones from Kirkdale cave and the ice age Lake Pickerin to well-known local heroes such as William Smith and Captain James Cook, Osborne excavates deep "shafts" through rich seams of the particular into the more general.

The Floating Egg makes rewarding reading for the general reader, and those with a more specialised interest will never guess what the title refers to. It's worth reading the book to find out. --Douglas Palmer

If you have never read a book about geology before, and didn't even think you were interested, Roger Osborne could change your life. . . He succeeds magnificently in communicating his enthusiasm.

Twenty-five stories, beginning with the search for an alchemist's secret, and ending with the re-imagination of a past world, each connected to a particular corner of north-east England, and each exploring the uncertain line where myth is dissolved into science, and belief gives way to knowledge.

Different episodes show how the fall of Constantinople converted the common rock of the Yorkshire cliffs into a source of extraordinary wealth and power, and how this in turn uncovered the inhabitants of a succession of past worlds; how a stone falling from the sky near this same coast changed the minds of all the natural philosophers of Europe; and how a new science was born on the top of the tower of York Minster. We learn about the cloak-and-dagger world of fossil trading in the town of Whitby; and we see the entire life-work of a forgotten scientific genius who died from consumption at the age of twenty-five, having revolutionised his science.

The stories move from documentary accounts to fictional recreations of history events, from contemporary writing and illustrations to present-day reflection. By using different ways to describing the world of scientific endeavour, the author has produced a fascinating visually beautiful and highly entertaining book.

If you have never read a book about geology before, and didn't even think you were interested, Roger Osborne could change your life. . . He succeeds magnificently in communicating his enthusiasm.

The Floating Egg begins with the search for an alchemist's secret, and ends with the re-imagination of a past world. Each chapter is connected to a particular corner of north-east England, and each explores the uncertain line where myth is dissolved into science, and belief gives way to knowledge.

Different episodes show how the fall of Constantinople converted the common rock of the Yorkshire cliffs into a source of extraordinary wealth and power, and how this in turn uncovered the inhabitants of a succession of past worlds; how a stone falling from the sky near this same coast changed the minds of all the natural philosophers of Europe; and how a new science was born on the top of the tower of York Minister. We learn about the cloak-and-dagger world of fossil trading in the town of Whitby; and we see the entire life-work of a forgotten scientific genius who died from consumption at the age of twenty-five, having revolutionised his science.

The stories move from documentary accounts of fictional recreations of historic events, from contemporary writings and illustrations to present-day reflection. By using different ways of describing the world of scientific endeavour, the author has produced a fascinating, visually beautiful and highly entertaining book which allows us to witness the birth of a new science - the science of geology.

Roger Osborne studied geology at Manchester University in the early 1970s. He then worked as a publisher of scientific, medical and technical books before becoming a full-time writer in 1992. He is the co-author of The Atlas of Earth History, The Atlas of Evolution and, most recently, the critically acclaimed Civilization. He lives in North Yorkshire. (19990119)