THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY, ig^ 



ble ; and transmuting the fear of God and the hopes of heaven into 

 a zeal for the exact determination of the units of force, and a confident 

 expectation that railroads will soon traverse all the unoccupied regions 

 of the earth, and malleable steel replace wood in the mechanic arts. 



You represent this new world, grown so suddenly old, learned, utili- 

 tarian, and critical. Your orators have a hard time of it. 



Am I to be the mouth -piece of the outside world, setting forth in 

 order what it has expected of you — its praise, its blame ? Nay, what 

 care you for praise from uninspired lips ? Or what care you for blame 

 from the vulgar herd who comprehend neither your purposes nor your 

 methods ? 



Am I to be your mouth-piece to inform this outside world of M^hat 

 the community of science which you partly represent has been about 

 the last twelve months, giving it such a catalogue of facts discovered, 

 and theories established or improved, that it shall stand amazed, and 

 bless its stars and worship ? Then this address would simply be a 

 grandiloquent stage-aside in the drama of this meeting, and no address 

 to you. 



Must I, then, speak to you as a fellow-worker in science, contribut- 

 ing some fresh gifts to our common stock of truths ? But that would 

 be better done, if done at all, by reading a paper on the subject in the 

 section to which I properly belong. 



I did, indeed, hesitate a while before I rejected a temptation to 

 discuss before you this evening one or two subjects on which I have 

 reflected for many years — for instance, the important role which the 

 chemical solution of the limestone formations has played in the grand 

 drama of the topography of the globe ; the absolute inconstancy of the 

 ocean-level ; the function of variable deposition in closed basins in ele- 

 vating the plane at which coal-vegetation repeated itself ; the influ- 

 ence which anticlinals and synclinals en echelon have exercised in origi- 

 nally directing, and afterward perpetually shifting, the systems of 

 river-drainage, as the general surface became lower and lower through 

 erosion ; the extraordinary differences in the amount and rate of ero- 

 sion in different parts of the same region, due to the various heights 

 and shapes of the plications — but a deep sense of insufficiency for 

 properly handling such great subjects deterred me from the at- 

 tempt. They demand the largest treatment, the fullest illustration, 

 and the long co-operation of many minds. All the great transcend- 

 ental questions of science remain open to research ; not one of them 

 has as yet been answered satisfactorily ; all answers have been prema- 

 ture, and most of what has been published for such seems to me puer- 

 ile ; yet the disposition to deal in transcendental science seems to grow 

 daily stronger. There are no laws, however, against initiation into 

 Alpine clubs. If men choose to run fatal risks for notoriety, let them 

 do so, in the name of all that is chilly and unprofitable ; but let them 

 not pretend that, when they reach the summit of some Jnngfrau or 



VOL. XXTIII. — 13 



