Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, by Stephen Jay Gould (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990; first published in 1989)
Science, beauty, and a sense of wonder interweave in Stephen J. Gould’s Wonderful Life, a book whose topic is “the most precious and important of all fossil localities – the Burgess Shale of British Columbia.” Gould’s explorations include the 1909 discovery and excavation of the Burgess Shale by C. D. Walcott; revisions of Walcott’s work by Gould and other paleontologists; and what the fossils mean to his readers, what they “tell us about evolution and the nature of history.”
The Burgess Shale occupies one of the most majestic settings that I have ever visited – high in the Canadian Rockies at the eastern border of British Columbia. Walcott’s quarry lies at an elevation of almost eight thousand feet on the western slope of the ridge connecting Mount Field and Mount Wapta. Before visiting in August 1987, I had seen many photos of Walcott’s quarry; I took several more in the conventional orientation (literally east, looking into the quarry). But I had not realized the power and beauty of a simple about-face. Turn around to the west, and you confront one of the finest sights on our continent – Emerald Lake below, and the snow-capped President range beyond, all lit, in late afternoon, by falling sun. Walcott found some wonderful fossils on the Burgess ridge, but I now have a visceral appreciation of why, well into his seventies, he rode the transcontinental trains year after year, to spend long summers in tents and on horseback. I also understand the appeal of Walcott’s principal avocation -- landscape photography, including pioneering work in the technology of wide-angle, panoramic shots. – from Wonderful Life: the Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, by Stephen J. Gould
Related Websites
The Unofficial Stephen Jay Gould Archive
The Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History – The Burgess Shale




