"To count the handful of years between the newest and oldest paper on many a citation list is to know that scientists rarely have cause to look back very far. That's a problem. Research is not just about placing one new brick on top of- or instead of- the last. It is a product, and a shaper, of people, place and society. To navigate that context wisely, the long view is essential."
The long view is essential. The topic was born in 1824 and was growing and developing by 1869. Successive editions of the Principles of Geology were continuing to spread the word and Lyell's adventures in North America were popularising the idea on that continent. The default theory of loess formation was Lyell's idea of deposition from a lake or perhaps flowing water. The best, and perhaps the only, comprehensive history of loess investigation is that by S.Z.Rozycki (1986 Polish, 1991 English) and he covers the period from 1869 onwards:
"Not everyone, however, supported the view of the fluvial genesis of loess. In 1857, Benningsen- Forder, putting forward a thesis of three marine transgressions during the Diluvial flood, maintained that the deposits associated with those transgressions were nothing else but loess, in which, in the vicinity of Siedenburg, he had apparently found marine fauna. Thus he became the forerunner of the marine theory of the origin of loess. In spite of the lack of factual evidence and the presence in the theory of elements which contradicted already known facts (terrestrial and fresh-water fauna within the loess, altitude etc.) it was accepted by many research workers in western Europe, For example Fallou (1867) regarded the limy loess of Saxonia as form of marl, and maintained that it was a marine sediment which had also been absorbing glaciofluvial material. Kingsmill (1869, 1870) carried this theory to China, where it was still defended by Prestwich in 1894."
