146 Rev. Mr Whe well's Address to the Geological Society. 



ringia, to the amount of above 1100. He also employed himself in meteo- 

 rological observations. 



Karl Ernest Adolph Von Hoff, Knight of the order of the White Falcon, 

 and invested with several oflBces of honour and dignity at the Ducal Court 

 of Gotha, died at Gotha the 24th of May last. He was 66 years of age, ha- 

 ving been born in the same city Nov. 1. I77I. 



Besides the history I have mentioned, which must always continue to be 

 a classical work on the subject of which it treats, he was at the time of his 

 death employed in completing a continuation of his Notices of Earthquakes 

 and Volcanic Eruptions ; and also a new work, which was considered to be an 

 important one, and was to be entitled " Germany, according to its Natural 

 Conditions and Political Kelations." 



In attempting a rapid survey of the contributions to geolo- 

 gical knowledge which have come under our notice during the 

 past year, I may perhaps be allowed to advert to a distinction 

 of the subject into Descriptive Geology and Geological Dyna- 

 mics ; the former science having for its object the description 

 of the strata and other features of the earth's surface as they 

 now exist ; and the latter science being employed in examining 

 and reducing to law the causes which may have produced such 

 phenomena. We appear to be directed to such a separation of 

 our subject by the present condition of our geological studies, 

 in which we and our predecessors have accumulated a vast store 

 of facts of observation, and have laboured with intense curio- 

 sity, but hitherto with very imperfect success, to extract from 

 these facts a clear and connected knowledge of the history of 

 the earth's changes. Nearly the same was the condition of 

 astronomy at the time of Kepler, when the accumulated obser- 

 vations of twenty centuries resisted all the attempts of that in- 

 genious man and his contemporaries to construct a science of 

 physical astronomy. But though checked by such failures, 

 they were not far from success ; and when for the next suc- 

 ceeding century philosophers had employed themselves in creat- 

 ing a distinct science of Dynamics, the science of physical astro- 

 nomy, full and complete, made its appearance, as if it were a 

 matter of course ; and thus shewed the wisdom of separately 

 cultivating the study of causes, and the classification of facts. 



DESCRIPTIVE GEOLOGY. 



If we begin with geological facts, our attention should first 

 be drawn to that district on the earth's surface within which 

 the facts have been subjected to a satisfactory comparison and 



