Editing Robert Hooke (section)

=== Palaeontology and geology <span class="anchor" id="Palaeontology"></span><span class="anchor" id="Geology"></span> ===
One of the observations in ''Micrographia'' is of [[petrified wood|fossil wood]], the microscopic structure of which Hooke compared to that of ordinary wood. This led him to conclude that fossilised objects like petrified wood and fossil shells such as [[ammonites]] were the remains of living things that had been soaked in mineral-laden petrifying water.{{sfnp|Rudwick|1976|page=54}} He believed that such fossils provided reliable clues about the history of life on Earth and, despite the objections of contemporary naturalists like [[John Ray]]{{snd}}who found the concept of [[extinction]] theologically unacceptable{{snd}}that in some cases they might represent species that had become extinct through some geological disaster.{{sfnp|Bowler|1992|pages=118–119}} In a series of lectures in 1668, Hooke proposed the then-heretical idea the Earth's surface had been formed by volcanoes and earthquakes, and that the latter were responsible for shell fossils being found far above sea level.{{sfnp|Inwood|2003|p=112}}

In 1835, [[Charles Lyell]], the Scottish geologist and associate of [[Charles Darwin]], wrote of Hooke in ''[[Principles of Geology]]'': "His treatise&nbsp;... is the most philosophical production of that age, in regard to the causes of former changes in the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature".{{sfnp|Lyell|1832|pages=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.168353/page/n76/mode/2up 76, 77]}}