The story of 17th century Danish scientist Nicolaus Steno, the first person to realise that fossils (especially of marine animals found on high ground) required a longer history for the Earth than calculations based on the Bible. His work was ignored for over a century; he dropped his geological studies and became a bishop, beatified in 1988 by Pope John Paul I.
Alan Cutler is a palaeontologist and geologist. This is his first book.