Mining Academies of Saxony and Hungary. 321 



sided knowledge and attendant prejudices which in isloated 

 mining countries have ever obstructed the way to improve- 

 ment. 



The little regard that has been paid to the advance of an 

 important branch is evinced by the fact that, in 1841, the 

 then Professor of Geology delivered, as lectures to the stu- 

 dents, the unaltered notes he had made, nearly half a century 

 ago, from the instructions of Werner I and that I have 

 heard some of the first of his pupils revive the ancient dreams 

 of the " plastic virtue'' of nature in regard to fossils, and 

 doubt the existence of a regular order of stratified depo- 

 sits, because they had seen nothing of the kind immediately 

 around them.* 



The course of mining education fails, therefore, in one of 

 its most important features, the inculcation of the general 

 principles and the practical application of geology ; and it 

 need excite no surprise that serious blunders should often 

 be committed, even in a country where such errors might be 

 checked by the existence of an institution like the above, and, 

 as too frequently happens nearer home, that coal should be 

 absurdly sought in a non-carboniferous geological formations, 

 where a few black shales attract the attention of the ignorant 

 speculator. 



It has been for some time expected that a complete change 

 will be made in the Schemnitz Academy, and some are of 

 opinion that the proposed end would be better attained if the 

 preparatory studies were made in Vienna, and the observa- 

 tion and practice of the processes were left to be followed 

 out in the mining district. There can be no doubt that both 

 science and art must languish, if secluded from the general 

 advance of other lands ; and that if the cultivation of the 

 former be forwarded in the stirring tide of full communi- 

 cation with the world, a valuable assistance w ill be conferred 

 on those branches of the latter which are confined by nature 

 to the bleak hill-side or remote mountain glen. 



* The individual above alluded to may have inserted his name in the Record 

 of the Freiberg Academy, but could not have attended the Lectures of Werner. 

 —Edit. 



