i895"9 6 -] Popular Delusions in Natural History. 179 



Want of time prevents us from paying any attention this 

 evening to popular delusions regarding Mammals, so we may 

 now pass on to the next subject. 



We now proceed to the subject of Geology, and here we find 

 that the strangest and most erroneous ideas are prevalent 

 even in the most highly educated ranks of society. This is 

 due to the deplorable fact that in spite of all our geological 

 societies, geological text-books, popular works, and popular 

 lectures, — in spite of all the controversies which have raged 

 about the reconciliation of the facts of Geology with the 

 account of the creation of the world given in the first chapter 

 of Genesis, — very few people outside the narrow limits of those 

 who are themselves either professional or amateur geologists 

 seem to know anything whatever of the teachings of geological 

 science. I think that most educated persons would feel 

 ashamed of themselves if it came out that they were ignorant 

 of the fact that the blood circulated or that the brain is the 

 organ of mind. Or to take Astronomy, if they did not know 

 such elementary facts as that the earth and the other planets 

 move round the sun, or that an eclipse of the last-named 

 luminary is caused by the moon getting between it and the 

 earth. But as regards Geology, people are not at all ashamed 

 to grow up and pass through the world without knowing even 

 the merest elements of the science, and come in consequence 

 to entertain the haziest and most erroneous ideas regarding 

 geological phenomena — ideas which, owing to their widespread 

 occurrence, may properly be classed as popular delusions. 



Sir Henry Howarth, in a recent paper on Geological 

 Museums contributed to ' Natural Science,' relates an amusing 

 anecdote which puts the whole case before us at a glance. 

 "A young American lady who was looking through the 

 Museum at Lincoln the other day asked my friend Canon 

 Nelson what certain curious - looking stones were. He ex- 

 plained that they were fossils. ' And what are fossils ? ' 

 she asked. ' The remains of animals and plants which lived 

 a very long time ago and are now preserved in stone/ said 

 he. ' Have you no fossils in America ? ' ' Oh no,' she 

 replied, ' America is such a new country ' ! " 



You will find that people in general have no idea whatever 



VOL. III. n 



