Mr HOPKINS, ON RESEARCHES IN PHYSICAL GEOLOGY. 9 



observe, that the law of approximate parallelism which equally charac- 

 terizes the phenomena of anticlinal lines, faults, and mineral veins, affords, 

 a priori, a strong probability that they are all assignable to the same 

 general cause. We may also further remark, that if, with the previous 

 conviction that the stratified beds have been deposited from water, and 

 with a knowledge of the physical impossibility of beds of uniform 

 thickness being so deposited except on planes but little inclined to 

 the horizon, — if, I say, under these circumstances, we examine many 

 of the phenomena above mentioned, it seems impossible not to be 

 struck with the idea of their being referrible to the action of some 

 powerful elevatory force acting beneath the superficial crust of the 

 globe, and thus producing those elevations and dislocations which we 

 now witness. And, accordingly, such is the almost universal impres- 

 sion on the minds of geologists. 



It appears, then, that we are arrived at that stage of geological sci- 

 ence in which we are able to recognize certain well defined geological 

 phenomena, distinctly approximating to geometrical laws ; and we have 

 also a distinct mechanical cause to which geologists, with almost one 

 consent, have agreed in considering them to be assignable. The next 

 step we are therefore called upon to take is obvious — it is to institute 

 an investigation, founded on mechanical and physical principles, of the 

 necessary relations which may exist between our observed phenomena 

 and the general cause to which we attribute them. This investigation 

 I have attempted, and now beg to lay it before the Society. I hope 

 the nature of it will be deemed a justification of my introduction of 

 a new term into the science, that of Physical Geology. 



I have conducted the investigation by the methods supplied by 

 mathematical analysis. I am aware, however, that to some persons the 

 application of these methods to geological problems may appear like 

 an affectation of an accuracy which the nature of the subject may not 

 be conceived to admit of; but from this opinion I dissent entirely. 

 W^e have, as I have before remarked, observed phenomena approximating 

 to well-defined laws, and which we are prepared to regard as the effects 

 of an assigned and definite cause; and to shew that this hypothetical 

 Vol.. VI. Part I. B 



