George Young (geologist)

George Young (born July 15, 1777 at Kirknewton , † May 8, 1848 in Whitby ) was a British clergyman, local historian and geologist.

Young was the fourth of ten children from a small landowner. Since he was born with only one arm intact, a job in agriculture was out of the question and he was to become a clergyman.

Young studied in preparation at the University of Edinburgh , where he was particularly interested in mathematics and science and was a student of John Playfair , who in turn came from the school of James Hutton . After graduating with top marks in 1796, he studied theology in Selkirk (Scotland) with George Lawson and was admitted to Edinburgh as a Presbyterian clergyman in 1801. In 1806 he became a Presbyterian pastor in Whitby, which he remained for 42 years. His church was on Cliff Lane. In 1826 he married Margaret Hunter (died 1846). The marriage remained childless.

In 1819 he received a Magister Artium from Edinburgh University. He received a doctorate in theology (Doctor of Divinity) from Miami College, Oxford, Ohio in 1838 . He wrote a story of Whitby, a book on geology and the teaching of the Bible, a biography of James Cook, and a geological description of the Yorkshire coast, which he previously explored closely with Bird. He also went into the fossils, for example from a cave near Kirkdale, in which he himself excavated and countered William Buckland's thesis of a post-flood hyena tooth . Young tried to reconcile the teachings of the Bible with the knowledge of geology. On the other hand, Young was cautious in interpreting geological knowledge, since, as he himself said, the science of geology was too young for that.

He was a corresponding member of the Wernerian Natural History Society in Edinburgh and the Literary and Scientific Societies of Yorkshire and Hull (for which he collected minerals and fossils from the Yorkshire coast). In 1823 he became a founding member and secretary of the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society. One of their main goals was to create a museum whose geological-paleontological collection was managed by Young and Bird.

Fonts

• Evangelical Principles of Religion vindicated, and the inconsistency and dangerous tendency of the Unitarian Scheme exposed; in a series of letters addressed to the Rev. T. Watson: in reply to his book entitled “A Plain Statement of some of the most important Principles of Religion as a preservative against Infidelity, Enthusiasm, and Immorality,” 'Whitby, 1812
• A History of Whitby and Streoneshalh Abbey; with a Statistical Survey of the Vicinity to the distance of twenty-five miles, 2 volumes, Whitby, 1817 Archives
• A Geological Survey of the Yorkshire Coast: describing the Strata and Fossils occurring between the Humber and the Tees, from the German Ocean to the Plain of York, Whitby, 1822 (illustrations by John Bird, who also contributed to the text) Archives , 2nd expanded Edition 1828 Google Books
• A Picture of Whitby and its Environs, Whitby, 1824, 2nd edition 1840 Google Books
• The Life and Voyages of Captain James Cook, drawn up from his Journals and other authenic documents, London, 1836 Archive
• Scriptural Geology, or an Essay on the High Antiquity ascribed to the Organic Remains embedded in Stratified Rocks, London 1838 (an Appendix… containing Strictures on some Passages in Dr. J. Pye Smith's lectures, entitled “Scriptures and Geology” published in 1840)
• A Catalog of Hardy Ornamental Flowering Shrubs, Forest and Fruit Trees, 1834 (assisted by the respected Scottish gardener Alexander Willison in Whitby)

He also published sermons on various occasions.

Web links

• Thompson Cooper, Dictionary of National Biography , Online
• Terry Mortensen biography

References and comments

1. ^ Reply to John Pye Smith, who had claimed that the Flood was only a local event in Mesopotamia. According to Young, however, it was a worldwide event and he also spoke out against the hypothesis of several such catastrophes in the history of the earth.