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A characteristic and often dominant feature of many polar landscapes is the great diversity and abundance of their standing waters especially in the Arctic. By comparison, Antarctica has comparatively little surface water, although notable large and often saline lakes exist in the oasis areas and alongside many glaciers, whereas coastal ponds and lakes are abundant in the maritime and peripheral Antarctic regions. This chapter provides an introduction to the different origins, distinguishing features, and landscape controls that result in an extraordinary diversity of lakes and ponds in both polar regions. The main emphasis is on the description of the geological and geomorphological processes involved in the formation and modification (natural change) of these high latitude lake ecosystems. The review draws on examples from both polar regions to emphasize the differences and similarities that exist between lake ecosystems of the two hemispheres.

This chapter discusses the geology and topography of marble outcrops and ore deposits which very much dictates the technology employed and the scale of extractive operations. These restrictions significantly influence the organizational structures and, together with the geographical location, determine the organizational challenges faced by the heads of these extractive operations. Moreover, the geology and topography of a mining or quarrying district also determine the spatial arrangement of operative (work procedures) and directive processes (planning and controlling of assets and goals, direction of human resources etc.). This is exemplified by the topographical layout of building structures, transport facilities, and extractive locations, or rather: their archaeological remains, within imperial districts such as the quarries in the Eastern Egyptian Desert or in mining areas such as Dolaucothi or Roflia Montan∏.

The evolution of physical geography in Britain over the last 100 years cannot be divorced from developments elsewhere, and by the year 2000 it had become increasingly difficult to distinguish physical geography from other disciplines. Some periods have shown a net gain, during which British physical geography assimilated and responded to trends developed elsewhere, whereas in others British trends provided a lead (especially reflecting the inspiration given by particular individuals) that has been perceived to be internationally influential. Whereas nineteenth-century geography was more holistic in character, it is ironic that for much of the twentieth century it became increasingly reductionist, with the development of many separate sub-fields succeeded by trends, very evident at the millennium, of a discipline seeking holism again — clearly linking with environmental science. The foundations of twentieth-century British physical geography included a major component derived from geology.

It is commonly assumed that "Darwin" represents the triumph of scientific rationality over scripture and superstition—an assumption combining ignorance of history with a philosophically naïve account of "truth." Before the seventeenth century, it was widely accepted that biblical interpretation and natural philosophy should each articulate the truth about the world in its own way, without the unnatural conflation or harmonizing of their respective stories into a single framework. The harmonistic model arose in the context of geological investigation, which initially appealed to the Genesis creation and flood narratives to interpret the fossil record and later sought to adapt the scriptural narratives to the modern geological discovery that the world is much older than previously thought. In all of this, scriptural narrative is removed from its natural habitat and forced to serve interests quite alien to it. The significance of Darwin is that, in developing his distinctive biological theories, he did not seek to coordinate them with scripture—thereby liberating scripture from science, and science from its own misuse of scripture.

Darwin's On the Origin of Species made much less of an impact on the interpretation of Genesis than might have been expected. This was largely because geological discoveries and their implications for the age of the world, the antiquity of the human race, and the biblical story of a universal flood preoccupied biblical scholars for much of the nineteenth century, from the 1820s to the end of the century. This chapter illustrates the diversity of the interpretations of Genesis during this period, one in which even the defenders of the accuracy of Genesis against science were by no means agreed on how to handle the biblical material.

This chapter examines attempts made to harmonize the creation narratives with geology before the impact of Darwinism. Despite a vastly greater age for the earth and the problem of extinction, harmonization of the science with both revealed and natural theology was initially possible. By the time Darwin published in 1859, however, the harmonization program had largely defeated itself because of discord among the harmonizers. The chapter emphasizes the divisiveness (rather than an inherent destructiveness) of new sciences, with particular reference to the additional problems for theology arising from the deism and agnosticism that often accompanied Darwinian understandings of design in nature and its laws. The chapter ends with a brief survey of new understandings of revelation, which give Christian thinkers alternative spaces in which to accommodate theories of evolution.

The crucial defamiliarization of 19th‐century French science set up via the Alexandrian Schools in Part Two allows Hilarion to return as intermediary/antagonist once more, this time as commentator‐double of Étienne Geoffroy Saint‐Hilaire as Starr has argued. This chapter however fills crucial gaps in Starr's arguments by elucidating previously unacknowledged 19th‐century intertexts and their importance for tableau five. Its parades of Nature gods (from India to the more familiar Rome and Gaul) turn myth language into 19th‐century scientific ‘story‐telling’ in deep time—geology and palaeontology—to describe creation. Saint‐Hilaire's growing discord with Cuvier is set in place for tableau seven and provides a solution for the knotty problem of Hilarion's departure and the arrival of the Devil (incredibly as Science) at the end of the tableau.

The Hebrew terminology is reviewed in an effort to determine the origin of the biblical words Sinai and Horeb. An attempt is made to identify the ancient Egyptian name for Sinai; it is probably bi3. The physical geography of the Sinai Peninsula is examined to gain an appreciation for how the biblical narratives portray life in the wilderness. There are three geographical divisions to Sinai whose differences were caused by the three geological zones, and the environment of the different regions are discussed.

Chapter 5 maintains that the slavery debates led antislavery moderates to historicize the faith. After exploring the various roots of historicism in antebellum religious thought and the failures of the antebellum biblical controversies involving geology and temperance to generate historical reasoning, the fifth chapter examines the antislavery theology of E. P. Barrows, Horace Bushnell, and Samuel Harris. This chapter ends with an account of the impact of the Civil War on the development of American theology.

This chapter explains the discoveries and the stories that this book has sought to explore. The story of the “heroic age of geology” has been examined, focusing on the variety of methodological and practical positions taken by the gentleman geologists of the Geological Society as they eschewed the self-determining forms of fictional “plots” in their contemplations of earth history. The chapter explains in brief how the book has portrayed the story about the uses of geological forms by novelists as they made attempts at establishing intellectual authority of their writings. From the geological fictions of Charles Kingsley, to George Eliot, to Charles Dickens, the novels show the possibility that history is not a story, but a structure. For Charles Kingsley and George Eliot, geology created for them a useful form of narrative breakdown. Their vision of the earth's formation brought forth their formulation of the novel's creation.

Chapter Fifty looks at Hodge and his family during the Civil War. As was true of most of the United States, Hodge had personal ties to the War. His fourth son, John, served for a time, and his brother-in-law, General David Hunter, kept Hodge abreast of Washington politics and news of the War more generally. Hodge was depressed throughout much of the War, saddened by the loss of life and the loss of the Union itself. During the War, Archie and his family returned to the North to take up a pastorate in Wilkes-Barré, Pennsylvania, while Mary returned to Princeton with her family, where her husband died of consumption soon after their arrival.

Chapter fifty-six takes a close look at Hodge’s lifelong commitment and interest in science. As many as twenty percent of Repertory articles concerned themselves with science, and Hodge remained committed throughout his life to seeing a close connection between scientific and religious inquiry. His last book, What is Darwinism?, functioned largely as a defense of the complementary nature of science and religion. Hodge believed Darwinism to be atheistic because it posited a theory of world development that had no place for a Divine Designer. Darwin’s theories implied a randomness that had no place in Hodge’s views of Divine Soveriegnty.

When asked about what myths are, the first definition that would usually come to mind is that myths are stories that are aimed at explaining certain natural phenomena with a very unscientific point of view. T. H. Huxley, an enthusiastic advocate of Darwinism, boldly took on the views of various religionists. Huxley's stern perspective was grounded on the following reasons: Huxley relied greatly on geology and evolutionary theory; Huxley categorized literature into those that are perfectly true, those that may be partially true, and those without any truth at all, and that he would only refer to the Bible for moral guidance; Huxley compared such stories with Near Eastern texts; and Huxley casted doubt on the Bible's authorship. While these views are presented, the chapter also looks into a study of the text's rhetoric that point out stylistic clues that may aid in understanding a different perspective of such stories.

There are a number of abiotic factors that have important impacts on the desert environment. Clearly, the most important of these is rainfall or, in some cases, other sources of precipitation such as fog, snow, or ice. Deserts are defined by their low mean rainfall, although it is just as important to measure the temporal and spatial variability in annual rainfall. High run-off from desert slopes is another factor that leads to high spatial patchiness in some deserts. This chapter emphasizes the large differences among deserts in ambient temperature (and seasonality) and how these differences affect the organisms that live there. It considers geology, particularly in terms of the effects on soils, which in turn is important for plant life and animal life.