Het paleontologisch-geologisch werk van Steno

Abstract

SUMMARY: In this paper the palaeontological-geological work of Nicolaus Steno (1638-1686) is discussed. Born in Copenhagen he is famous among the anatomists for his discovery of the ductus parotideus (now called Stenonianus), but very early he was interested in matters on palaeontology and geology and for many scholars of the History of Science he is «the father of geology». As a young student he published a disputation ; De hermis (defended in Amsterdam in 1660); after a stay in Holland he is falling more and more under the spell of the anatomy of the earth, especially the glossopetrae interested him. In his Canis carchariae he deals in XI historiae and VI conjecturae with observed facts about the soil and the bodies therein (Florence 1667). Two years later (Florence 1669) he sets down in writing a logical and exact information built up from conjecturae to conclusions. His modern vision : not to explain questions in science of nature by supernatural elements if we have at hand an exact explication, let see the loss Science had to bear by his leaving the exploration to friends and taking holy orders, and cultivating then the to him much wider field of «spiritual geology». The above mentioned Dissertationis prodromus De Solido intra solidum naturalliter contento is a milestone in the History of Science and the scientists of the Accademia del Cimento were lucky to see that book in 1669 in Florence.