James Hutton - Important Figures in Earth Science Essay

James Hutton - Important Figures in Earth Science - Essay Example But he did not take to geology right at the beginning of his career as he entered legal profession as an apprentice in a law firm. But enamored with chemistry as he was at that stage, he spent more time in trying to find how sal ammoniac could be processed from coal soot. It was only natural that his employers were not amused by this and he was asked to leave. He found refuge in medicine as it bore close affinity with chemistry and at twenty three years of age got an MD degree from Holland. By this time, his forays into manufacturing sal ammoniac became commercially viable and he forsook medicine for this opportunity. He returned to Scotland and started pursuing this venture in full earnest till he earned enough fortune within the next three years to retire from it and settle in Edinburgh for pursuing his scientific interests as a full time engagement. He started reading and travelling extensively and submitted his observations in the form two papers at Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1785. When these papers were published three years later in 1788, they altered forever the face of geological science (Scott, 2009). His theory, commonly referred to as unformitariansim, postulates that all observable geological phenomena of the world have been uniformly repeating themselves over long periods of time.