Abstract
In the early days of geology, especially during the 17th and18 centuries, the dominant explanation for the sedimentaryrocks and their fossilized contents was that they had been laid down inthe great Flood of the days of Noah. This was the view of Steno, the"father of stratigraphy", whose principles of stratigraphicinterpretation are still followed today, and of John Woodward, Sir IsaacNewton’s hand-picked successor at Cambridge, whose studies onsedimentary processes laid the foundation for modern sedimentology andgeomorphology. These men and the other flood geologists of their day werecareful scientists, thoroughly acquainted with the sedimentary rocks andthe geophysical processes which formed them. In common with most otherscientists of their day, they believed in God and the divine authority ofthe Bible. Evolution and related naturalistic speculations had beenconfined largely to the writings of social philosophers and rationalistictheologians.