|
|
Article: RECREATING A PREHISTORIC LANDSCAPE
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- July 13, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1987 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
As the writer John McPhee has pointed out, geologists inhabit
scenes that no one ever saw -- mountains, forests, rivers and
archipelagos long vanishedfrom the face of the Earth. No, not
vanished -- almost vanished.
If some fragment of the scene has remained in the crust of the
Earth, and if the forces that transform the crust have brought that
fragment into view, then the geologist goes out, McPhee says, "with
his hammer and his sandwich, his magnifying glass and his
imagination" and rebuilds the mountains, the forests, the rivers and
the archipelagos.
With only a little imagination and half a sandwich, even the
amateur geologist can rebuild vanished geographies.
On a hilltop in Easton ...