Essentials of Earth history / Основы исторической геологии

Happy is he who knows the origin of things. Thus wrote the Roman poet, Virgil, many centuries ago. He may have said this as he puzzled over the many myths and legends that describe the beginnings of the earth and the human species. The urge to explain origins is strong, and the absence of facts did not deter ancient peoples from inventing myths to satisfy the need.

The beginnings of historical research came mostly by necessity as hereditary ruling dynasties felt a need to establish their rights to govern or own property. The Egyptian monarchs, for example, believed themselves to be descended from gods and needed proof of their lineages.

The court historians of the royal Brunswick-Luneburg line, when ordered to write a family history late in the seventeenth century, decided that “in order to show the remotest origin of our state, we must say something about the first configurations of the Earth, of the nature of the soil and what it contains." All land or title holders who traced their rights to royal grants or ancestral privileges were most anxious to keep their histories intact. <...>