THEORIES or ORE DISPOSTTTON HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 31 7 



THE SCIENTIFIC PERIOD. 



The first scientific period may be said to have been entered on near 

 the close of the eighteenth century, Avhen De Saussure (1770), Pallas 

 (1777), and AVerner (iTi)l) almost sinndtaneously inaugurated by 

 their works the era of ])ositive geology. It was about the same time 

 that chemistry was placed on a scientific basis by the researches of 

 Lavoisier, Scheele, Priestley, Cavendish, and others. Up to this time 

 even the name geology had hardly been recognized, natural history or 

 mineralogy l)eing the titles usually given to works that treated of it, 

 nnd the fcAv exact facts with regard to it which such men as Agricola, 

 Steno, and others had determined were drowned in a sea of conjec- 

 tures. On the Continent it was the mining schools that principally 

 fostered mineralogic and geonostic studies, and these had been but 

 recently founded, that at Freiberg, Saxony, in 1765; at Schemnitz, 

 Hungary, in 1770; at St. Petersburg, in 1783; and at Paris, in 1790. 

 Geological literature, especiall}^ in Germany, went hand in hand with 

 that on mining and mineralogy. 



Of the three men just named, the two first Avere eminently observers. 

 Pallas, after being called to the mining school at St. Petersburg, had 

 made a six years' geological expedition through the mountains of 

 Russia and vSiberia, and De Saussure for over thirty years was largely 

 busied in studying geological phenomena in his native Alps, being 

 the first to climb Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa. He also appears to 

 have been the first working geologist to use the name geology for his 

 science. While neither of these men contributed much to the advance- 

 ment of geological theory, they added largely to the store of ascer- 

 tained fact, which is its necessary basis, and their greatest service, per- 

 haps, was in inaugurating geological studies of the great mountain 

 systems of the world, which more than any other branch of geological 

 inquiry have been instrumental in raising this science to its present 

 stand. 



The actual field of observation of Werner, on the other hand, was 

 extremely restricted, scarcely extending beyond the confines of his 

 native Saxony. He had, however, a genius for the analysis, classi- 

 fication, and coordination of observations, which enabled him to bring 

 order out of the chaos of fact and fancy which then constituted the 

 science. With an eminentl}- didactic mind, he possessed, with much 

 personal charm, such a power of imj^ressing his ideas upon his pupils, 

 that during the forty years that he occupied the chair of mining and 

 mineralogy the Freiberg school was the center of geological studies 

 in Europe. From it emerged so many distinguished geologists, as 

 the fruit of his teachings, that, as Cuvier says, " from one end of the 

 Avorld to the other nature was interrogated in the name of Werner." 



Contemporaneously with Werner an equally great service was being 



