BY ROBERT L. JACK, F.G.S., F.R.G.S. XI 



natural phenomena, then geology is not practical. If geologists 

 grope and stumble, if they now and then make mistakes, I 

 submit that, all the same, the honest attempt to " know things 

 by their causes " is worthy of respect. It appears to me that 

 much of the prejudice against geology on the gromid of its not 

 being practical, arises from a popular misunderstanding of its 

 methods of work. To take the simplest of illustrations from my 

 own daily life : When I visit a mine, I am often conscious that I 

 am expected by the owner to confine my attention to what lies 

 between the two walls of the lode, or at all events within the 

 four corners of the lease, and when I begin to enquire if anybody 

 has heard of fossils in the neighbourhood I see the smile of 

 contemptuous pity for what is evidently regarded as a time- 

 wasting " fad." But surely, if it were known that outside of 

 the walls of the lode we look for the law which governed the 

 deposition of the ore, that all-important evidence may lie 

 beyond the boundary pegs, and that the fossils are the counters 

 with which we reckon up the chances of the lode being subject 

 to the laws governing similar deposits, the utility of the enquiry 

 would hardly be called in question. Not that I reckon the 

 immediate gain to be the chief end of geology. The science 

 reaches back to the beginning of terrestrial things and to the 

 origin of life on this and other planets ; and it looks forward to 

 the development and ultimate destiny of the earth and its 

 inhabitants. In the meantime it strives to understand all that 

 the other sciences can teach it of the processes carried on in the 

 realms of organic and inorganic nature at the present time, 

 believing that in the knowledge of the present lies the key to 

 the history of the past and the prophecy of the future. 



Illustrations of the ultimate usefulness of each and every 

 science might be cited, and although such an argument would 

 be superfluous in the presence of this audience, yet it cannot be 

 denied that it needs to be brought home to the many who lightly 

 cavil at the claims of science to be practical. There are many 

 who say they cannot see why one should study beetles, or 

 butterflies, or weeds ; another attempt to lift the veil surrounding 

 the North Pole ; another turn night into day for the purpose of 

 measuring the distance of a star ; or yet another vex his soul 

 over the isolation of a suspected element which must at the best 



