Movement beneath the surface

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Eurasia North America America Africa North America America North America America Asia Europe : India Africa Eurasia Africa India the way the cont Science Correspondent.

*The Geological Museum of the Institute of Geological Sciences, Exhibition Road, London SW7. Admission free. Open: Mon-Sat: 10.00am6.00pm; Sun: 2.30pm6.00pm.

philosophers into two great camps-materialists and idealists. Engels sees the fundamental distinction between them in the fact that while for the materialist nature is primary and spirit secondary, for the idealist the reverse is the case"

So writes Lenin in Materialism and Empiriocriticism, an incisive attack on a group of would-be Marxists who in the first decade of this objects. The opposite doctrine (idealism) claims that objects do not exist 'without the mind'; objects are 'combinations of sensations'."

Earth sciences, such as geology and palaeontology (the study of fossils) have played an important role in providing evidence to support the materialist position.

All the relevant data point to the fact that the earth was once in such a state that no human or any other creature existed on it.

Only in the last five million years of the 4.6 thousand million years since the earth was formed have erect, two-legged primates, the forebears of humans, walked its surface, and only in the last few thousand years do we have any record of human history.

Because there is no human record of the major part of the earth's history we have to look for evidence of the events of this period in the rocks of which the earth is comprised.

Such evidence is not always easy to discover, especially in countries like history shaken by tremendous earthquakes and smothered in thick ash falls and molten rock from vigorously active volcanoes.

Once, much of Britain was a sandy desert, and at other times it was covered with a great ice cap.

All these things are normally associated with distant parts of the globe and not with Britain.

There is now a chance for us all to view Britain in a fresh light by visiting a new permanent exhibition entitled "Britain Before Man" at the Geological Museum in London.

The exhibition is designed to show how the bedrock of the British Isles has been built up over the last 3,000 million years.

Five bays lead the visitor from the earliest recognisable geological events to the arrival of humans.

A final section shows some aspects of the impact of humans on the environment.

The bays contain a movie, slide shows, models, recorded commentaries and dioramas, all of a very high quality.

The reconstructed views of how Britain must have looked modern ideas of what was going on in the rest of the world at these times and with the theory of Plate Tectonics.

According to this theorywhich is now widely accepted by earth scientists-the topmost skin of the earth is divided into a small number of large plates that are constantly in motion relative to one another at the rate of a few centimetres a year, under the influence of forces generated deep within the earth's interior.

It is at the margins of these plates that most earthquake activity, volcanic eruptions and mountain building takes place.

A separate permanent exhibition at the Geological Museum entitled "How the Earth Works" explains in simple but clear terms the ideas behind Plate Tectonic theory.

Although there is no section of these exhibitions that relate these scientific findings to materialist philosophy they are to be thoroughly recommended nevertheless as summaries of important evidence which supports the materialist point of view.

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"In his work "Ludwig Feuerbach' Engels divides