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speculation as to the causes of the more obvious phenomena of nature, as 
well as inquiries which they hoped to make more practically useful, such 
as the astrologer’s art (always a favorite in the East) and alchemy, about 
which the Chinese seem to have long held views similar to those of the 
Arabs. And so we get down to the discussions which led up to the contro- 
versies of our day. ‘The Italian swvants of the 16th century, among whom 
was the great painter Lronarpo pa Vrnct, discussed with vehemence the 
origin of the sea-shells found in the rocks, and loose material at high 
levels and far inland. For three centuries did they dispute about the two 
questions whether the fossils were really the remains of marine animals, 
and, secondly, granting that, could they not haye got there in Noah’s flood? 
Puor (1677) who we may say started them at Oxford, said that the shells 
were produced by a plastic virtue latent in the earth. Lister (1678) wrote 
a work on stones, *‘ which have a kind of resemblance to marine bodies.’’ 
Woopwarp (1695), who founded the Museum and Chair of Geology at Cam- 
bridge, referred all the fossils to Noah’s flood. When, later on, the facts 
that great and repeated changes had taken place in the surface configuration 
of the earth was admitted, the great dispute arose as to whether the pheno- 
mena were to be chiefly referred to chemical and volcanic or to aqueous 
agency; and Werner, the Vulcanist, and Hurron, the Neptunist, started 
a host of warm partisans collecting facts in support of either the Wernerian 
or Huttonian theory. But facts are obstinate and independent voters, and 
when brought up to the poll, although they favoured Hvurron’s views 
rather than those of his opponent, they soon began to put forward other 
representatives, when, in 1790, Wir1tiam Smitn, ‘the father of English 
geology,’ began to put the science into shape by publishing accurate 
tables of the strata and a geological map of England. Sepewick was a boy 
of five years old, and only five years later, LyrLi wasborn. One of these, 
the best observer and most eloquent expounder of geological phenomena 
that England has ever known, the other the most clear and careful reasoner 
upon all the facts bearing upon any point under discussion that our science 
has produced. 
Ilere, in passing, I may comment upon some remarks which appeared in 
the Edinburgh Review for last July. In an article on ‘ Geikie’s life of 
Murchison,”’ the Reviewer, wishing, we must suppose, to raise the relative 
position of the hero of his biography by lowering that of his contempora- 
ries, speaks of Lyrin as a retiring student, whose principal title to fame 
rested on his early papers on the Belgian tertiaries. As well might he 
wish us to believe that ‘TurruwALt was a retiring student whose principal 
title to fame rested on an early paper on the irony of Sophocles. ‘The man 
who stumbles across an inscription and publishes a copy of it is great ; 
the man who writes a history of his country, founded on that and a 
hundred other inscriptions, is a mere compiler. Lyet.’s title to fame! 
Where is there such another scientific work as the Principles of Geology, 
built up, too, on such an unconnected mass of ill-observed facts and 
warped judgments? Where a better manual of anything like so large a 
subject than his Elements of Geology? What a vast amount of original 
observation is incorporated in these works! Lye organized the whole 
