SEQUEL TO SYSTEMATIC GEOLOGY. 523 



CHAPTER III. 



SEQUEL TO THE FORMATION OF SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTIVE GEOLOGY. 



Sect. 1. Reception and Diffusion of Systematic Geology. 



IF our nearness to the time of the discoveries to which we have just 

 referred, embarrasses us in speaking of their authors, it makes it 

 still more difficult to narrate the reception with which these discove- 

 ries met. Yet here we may notice a few facts which may not be 

 without their interest. 



The impression which Werner made upon his hearers was very 

 strong ; and, as we have already said, disciples were gathered to his 

 school from every country, and then went forward into all parts of the 

 world, animated by the views which they had caught from him. We 

 may say of him, as has been so wisely said of a philosopher of a very 

 different kind, 1 " He owed his influence to various causes ; at the head 

 of which may be placed that genius for system, which, though it 

 cramps the growth of knowledge, perhaps finally atones for that mis- 

 chief by the zeal and activity which it rouses among followers and 

 opponents, who discover truth by accident, when in pursuit of weapons 

 for their warfare." The list of Werner's pupils for a considerable 

 period included most of the principal geologists of Europe ; Freisleben, 

 Mohs, Esmark, d'Andrada, Raumer, Engelhart, Charpentier, Brocchi. 

 Alexander von Humboldt and Leopold von Buch went forth from his 

 school to observe America and Siberia, the Isles of the Atlantic, and 

 the coast of Norway. Professor Jameson established at Edinburgh a 

 Wernerian Society ; and his lecture-room became a second centre of 

 Wernerian doctrines, whence proceeded many zealous geological ob- 

 servers ; among these we may mention as one of the most distinguish- 

 ed, M. Ami Boue, though, like several others, he soon cast away the 

 peculiar opinions of the Wernerian school. The classifications ot 

 this school were, however, diffused over the civilized world wit'i ex- 



Mackintosh on Hobbas, Dissert, p. 177. 



