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As you go through each "Episode" in the period 1800-1840, you will find questions listed at the end of each Episode. Also, as you go through, consider the following:

1. List the features whose origin was being actively contested and study the Episodes table and note chronological development of ideas: what explanations were "on the table" by the mid to late 1830s?
    
2. By 1840, what was the status of a glacial theory at this time? Would you have accepted it as a universal explanation of the features you listed, or not?
   1. What other information or study would you wish to see to persuade you? Or, if you are persuaded, what was its greatest weakness at this time?
       
3. Pre-existing (pre-conceived) ideas about how nature functions can influence judgments – the strength of the facts alone is sometimes insufficient to persuade (explanations, and not just observations, can be “theory-laden," as Karl Popper wrote). Do you see evidence of the development of ideas, 1800-1840, being "theory-laden?" In fact, what philosophies or approaches to explanation were being used in geology by 1840?
   1. How does each impact explanation and judgment
   2. Which explanations (1, above) fit in with which approach
       
4. On the evidence of the episodes, would you say that catastrophism and uniformitarianism were derived from study or were they imposed upon or worked out through study?
    
5. Which explanation was the most universal or was seen to provide the greatest coverage of features at this time? Which explanations seem more local or limited?
    
6. Why were naturalists disposed towards accepting the widespread action of water across the landscape?
    
7. What advantages did the following have over the "glaciation" at this time?
   1. Tsunami
   2. Deluge
   3. Drift
       
8. Which theory or approach (if any) constituted the most efficient explanation of valleys at this time? Was there (could there be) a universal theory of valley formation?
    
9. Is catastrophism necessarily a "supernatural" approach to explanation? Was it based any less on actual evidence than Lyell's uniformitarianism or Venetz's actualism?
    
10. What was the origin of the waters that moved across the land according to:
    1. Buckland
    2. Hall
    3. Lyell
    4. Von Buch
    5. de la Beche
        
11. What was the origin of land ice according to
    1. Charpentier
    2. Esmark
    3. Agassiz
        
12. How do your answers to 10 and 11 (above) affect your thinking on the acceptability of the process being offered to explain the features?
     
13. Lyell had two separate explanations for erratics in the Alps and in northern Europe. What were they? Do you think this affects the strength of his theory in any way?
     
14. What was the significance of Renoir's work in the Jura?
     
15. Early on, science was international in scope -- involving the movement of people and ideas (in this case over much of western Europe). Social networking on a personal level was as important as professional communication or abstract logic in enabling communication and in persuasion.  It seems that important new ideas can be independently discovered simultaneously, and scientists in different places have sometimes asked the same questions and come to different conclusions.
    1. Are there any geographic influences and differences in theory at this time? Comment on the impact of geography on theory.