Earth Cycles : a historical perspective by 
A Natural History of Time by 
The Chronologers' Quest : episodes in the search for the age of the earth by 
Worlds Before Adam : the reconstruction of geohistory in the age of reform
Lyell and Darwin, Geologists : Studies in the Earth Sciences in the Age of Reform
Charles Lyell, the years to 1841 : the revolution in geology
The Ice Finders : how a poet, a professor, and a politician discovered the Ice Age
George Poulett Scrope discovered geological time through the study of volcanoes, such as the extinct one near the city of Jaujac in the Vivarais. In that region, vast cliffs of columnar basalt were revealed over time by the flow of the Alignon river. Image from Memoir on the Geology of Central France, including the Volcanic Formations of Auvergne, the Velay and the Vivarais, 1827.
