416 NATURAL SCIENCE [December 



careful geological observations, which he published in the accounts of 

 his journeys to Gotland, to Oeland, and, above all, to Westrogothia 

 and Scania. He drew a section of the strata composing Kinnekulle, 

 and paralleled them with beds in other parts of Sweden, subsequently 

 using his knowledge to interpret the structure of Scania. "Thus," 

 said he, " the section of Kinnekulle serves as introduction to Strata 

 terrae or the anatomy of the earth-crust, not only here in Westro- 

 gothia, but probably over the greater part of the world." He recog- 

 nised that the strata had been deposited in the sea throughout many 

 long-vanished periods, and attempted to classify them according to 

 their relative age. Thus Linnaeus laid the foundations of the 

 Wernerian system before Werner was born ; and it was not long 

 before his fellow-countryman Bergman erected upon that foundation 

 the actual framework that Werner filled in. Other Scandinavians 

 might have been mentioned, such as Gyllenhahl, with his truly re- 

 markable palaeontological study of Echinosphaera, and Hermelin, 

 with his geological maps of Southern Norway and Sweden. The 

 most curious omission, however, considering the occasion of the 

 lectures, is that of citizens of the United States. Featherstonhaugh 

 and H. D. Rogers are just alluded to, but that remarkable and much- 

 abused geological genius, Ebenezer Emmons, is not even named. 



We have not mentioned these omissions for the sake of fault- 

 finding, but as further evidence of the amount of good work done by 

 many whom it is the fashion of the present day to disregard. We 

 sympathise warmly, as we have already said, with Professor Miall's 

 recent plea for a more historical method of teaching the natural 

 sciences, and, as a help in that direction, no book is better adapted 

 than the present. But those who imagine, if such there be, that they 

 have passed beyond the student stage, would yet do well to dip now 

 and again into the battered volumes that grow dusty on topmost 

 shelves. There are many observations and many shrewd suggestions 

 hidden in those old books, made perhaps too early in the day to have 

 taken effect, but waiting to be applied by us now with our modern 

 knowledge and methods. Eosinus, for instance, 178 years ago, de- 

 scribed the course of the nerve-canals, "foramina jure meritoque pro 

 nervorum canalibus reputanda," in the cup of the lily-encrinite, in 

 language that Dr W. B. Carpenter (the modern discoverer of that 

 nerve-system) could not have bettered. The fact is that the worth of 

 a man's work does not necessarily depend on the number of his years 

 or on the century in which he lives. 



Some of the most valuable passages in this book are those in 

 which Sir Archibald uses the weight of his experience to enforce 

 the morals to be derived from the study of the older writers, hi 

 one place he quotes Fitton's review of the Wernerian school : " A 

 Wernerian geognost is chiefly employed in placing the phenomena he 

 observes in the situations which his master has assigned to them in 

 his plan of the mineral kingdom. It is not so much to describe the 

 strata as they are, and to compare them with rocks of the same 

 character in other countries, as to decide whether they belong to this 

 or that series of depositions, supposed once to have taken place over 

 the whole earth, ... to ascertain their place in an ideal world." 

 Similar criticism might justly be applied to-day in various branches 



