iv] OF EVOLUTION 27 



aristocratic body of exclusive amateurs and wealthy 

 collectors of minerals. William Smith, ' the Father 

 of English Geology ' though he published little and 

 never joined the society exercised a most important 

 influence on its work. By his maps, and museum of 

 specimens, as well as by his communications, so freely 

 made known, concerning his method of ' identifying 

 strata by their organic remains/ many of the old geo- 

 logists, who were not aware at the time of the source 

 of their inspiration, were led to adopt entirely new 

 methods of studying the rocks. In this way, the 

 accurate mineralogical and geognostical methods of 

 Werner came to be supplemented by the fruitful 

 labours of the stratigraphical palaeontologist. The new 

 school of geologists included men like William Phillips, 

 Conybeare, Sedgwick, Buckland, De la Beche, Fitton, 

 Mantell, Webster, Lonsdale, Murchison, John Phillips 

 and others, who laid the foundations of British strati- 

 graphical geology. 



But these great geological pioneers, almost with- 

 out exception, maintained the Wernerian doctrines 

 and were firm adherents of Catastrophism. The three 

 great leaders the enthusiastic Buckland, the eloquent 

 Sedgwick, and the indefatigable Conybeare were 

 clergymen, as were also Whewell and Henslow, and 

 they were all honestly, if mistakenly, convinced that 

 the Huttonian teaching was opposed to the Scriptures 



