26 THE COMING [CH. 



establishment in London of the Geological Society. 

 Originating in a dining club of collectors of minerals, 

 the society consisted at first almost exclusively of 

 mineralogists and chemists, including Davy, Wollaston, 

 Sir James Hall, and later, Faraday and Turner. The 

 bitter but barren conflict between the Neptunists and 

 the Plutonists was then at its height, and it was, from 

 the first, agreed in the infant society to confine its 

 work almost entirely to the collection of facts, 

 eschewing theory. During the first decade of its 

 existence, it is true, the chief papers published by 

 the society were on mineralogical questions ; but 

 gradually geology began to assert itself. The actual 

 founder and first president of the society, Greenough, 

 had been a pupil of Werner, and used all his great 

 influence to discourage the dissemination of any but 

 Wernerian doctrines foreign geologists, like Dr 

 Berger, being subsidised to apply the Wernerian 

 classification and principles to the study of British 

 rocks. Thus, in early days, the Geological Society 

 became almost as completely devoted to the teaching 

 of Wernerian doctrines as was the contemporary 

 society in Edinburgh. 



Dr Buckland used to say that when he joined the 

 Geological Society in 1813, 'it had a very landed 

 manner, and only admitted the professors of geology 

 in Oxford and Cambridge on sufferance.' 



But, gradually, changes began to be felt in this 



