174 J. L. LOBLEY — THE STUDY OF GEOLOGY. 



I now come to "William Smith, the father of British Strati- 

 graphical Geology. He it was who, in 1790, in his 'Tabular View 

 of British Strata,' first reduced the stratified rocks of Great Britain 

 to order, and showed that groups of strata, or "formations," as 

 they are called, may be distinguished and identified by the organic 

 remains, or fossils, found in them. This discoveiy was of the 

 greatest possible importance, since by showing us that during the 

 formation of each set of strata there flourished a group of animals 

 and plants on the earth, different from the group living Avhen the 

 next set of strata above or below was formed, it teaches us that the 

 rocks have been formed during long and successive periods of time, 

 and that all these periods, except the latest, were anterior to the 

 commencement of the existence of the group of animals and plants 

 which we now find inhabiting the earth. 



Time will not permit me to speak of the many men whose 

 labours for the advancement of geological science have shed glory 

 on our country since the days of William Smith, but with the 

 works of Sedgwick, of Lyell, of Murcliison, of Fitton, of De la 

 Beche, of Phillips, of Morris, of Prestwich, and of many more, you 

 will become acquainted if you give any attention to geological 

 science, and I will not further allude to them than by briefly 

 mentioning the three schools into which modern geologists have 

 been divided — the Catastrophists, the Uniformitarians, and the 

 Evolutionists. 



The first of these schools of modern geologists, the Catastro- 

 phists, or Convulsionists, as they have been called, considered 

 that although all geological phenomena can be accounted for by 

 forces now operating, yet that these forces operated in the past 

 much more energetically than at the present time, and that these 

 forces acting with a hundi'cdfold intensity, caused great catastrophes 

 or convulsions, far exceeding in violence and extent any seismic 

 event witnessed during the historical period, and that then were 

 mountains upheaved and continents submerged. 



The second school, the Uniformitarians, the great exponent of 

 whose views was Lyell, maintain that not only are the forces 

 now operating sufficient to account for everything that has been 

 observed, but that they are sufficient even if they have never acted 

 with greater intensity than now ; that time, and time alone, is 

 required to render possible the production of all geological pheno- 

 mena; and that Nature works uniformly, that her laws never suffer 

 change, never act with greater or less force, that the whole 

 machinery of the universe is never accelerated, and never retarded, 

 but that all is working continuously, unchangingly, and yet 

 progressively. 



The third and most recent school of philosophers are the Evolu- 

 tionists, at the head of whom we have Mr. Herbei't Spencer and 

 Professor Huxley. Evolutionism readily admits that the present 

 forces of Nature, working at their present intensity, are quite 

 sufficient to account for all we see ; but, it is argued, may not these 

 forces, acting continuously for lengthened periods, produce a set of 



