Twenty-five stories are contained in this text, beginning with the search for an alchemist's secret, and ending with the re-imagination of a past world. Each is connected to a remote corner of north-east England, and each exploring the uncertain line where myth is dissolved into science, and belief gives way to knowledge. Different episodes show how the fall of Constaninople converted the common rock of the Yorkshire cliffs into a source of extraordinary wealth and power, and how this in turn uncovered the inhabitants of a succession of past worlds; how a stone falling from the sky near this same coast changed the minds of all the natural philosophers of Europe; and how a new science was born on the top of the tower of York Minster. The stories move from documentary accounts to fictional recreations of historic events, from contemporary writings and illustrations to present-day reflection. By using different ways of describing the world of scientific endeavour, the author has produced an entertaining book which allows the reader to witness the birth of a new science - the science of geology.