2 Journal of TiiWcl atiJ Natural ffistory 



s^jrings, frosts, ice, waves, tides, currents, earthquakes, volcanoes 

 — every agency, in short, which in any way can be recognised as 

 modifying tlie outside or the inside of our globe, comes within the 

 scope of It is research. And in proportion to the thoroughness 

 with which he comprehends these operations of Hving nature 

 largely depends the measure of his success in realizing the changes 

 which have formerly passed over the earth. 



No line can be drawn between the social or political history of 

 the present day and that of former times. We are living and acting 

 liistory now as truly as men did in the days of Miltiades or Julius 

 CiBsar. Nor can any boundary be traced between the operations 

 of nature in our own age and those in what are called the geological 

 periods. The world is working out geological history now as surely 

 as it did in the times of the trilobite or the pterodactyle. It may 

 be that all the forces which have at different times affected the 

 earth's crust are not acting now, or may possibly have lost some of 

 their first vigour. But the great leading princi])le of change, so far 

 as we yet know, remain tlie same in kind, if not al)solutely the 

 same in degree. 



To the wide i)revalence of the feeling that geological research 

 must deal rather with the jiast than with the present as])ect of 

 nature, we may with i)rol)al)ility attribute the indifference which 

 has long existed as to the study of the existing form of the surface 

 of the country. If one considers the matter, it cannot but seem 

 strange that so much should be known, and so much more conjec- 

 tured, as to the outline of lands and seas in former geological times, 

 and yet that so little concern should have been shewn to ascertain 

 how the present contour of our lands came into existence. That 

 contour has usually been quietly overlooked, or but vaguely 

 accounted for. Though the broad outlines of the subject were 

 long ago traced by Hutton and Playfair, it is only within the last 

 few years that geologists have begun generally to acknowledge that 

 the surface of the country has a history of its own, independent of 

 any geological formation, and that its metliodical study may throw 

 new light on many ])arts of these formations. 



Referring for further details to the writings of Ramsa)', Jukes, 

 and others wlio have recently treated of the subject, 1 do not pro- 

 pose in the present pajK-r to bring forward new facts or conclusions, 

 but ratlier to shew liow the study may be prosecuted; and to select 

 lor that end the scenery of Scotland, as an illustration at once 

 familiar and easily accessible. But the reader will bear in mind 



