GEOLOGY OF THE INNER EARTH.—IGNEOUS ORES.‘ 
By Prof. J. W. Grecory, D: Sc., FP. 
Le0| 
RR 
THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
1907! This is the centenary year of the Geological Society of 
London; next month the British geologists will celebrate the event, 
and their pleasure will be enhanced by the sympathetic presence of a 
distinguished company of foreign geologists. 
With a just feeling of satisfaction may we celebrate this event; for 
to the Geological Society of London is due the conversion of geology 
from a fanciful speculation into an ordered science. Yet so quietly 
has this society done its work that the debt due it is inadequately real- 
ized. When we consider what the world owes to geology in respect 
of its economic guidance, the intellectual stimulus of its conceptions, 
the reverence it inspires for the venerable and majestic universe, its 
liberating influence from dogma, we may rightly regard the work of 
the Geological Society as one of the most valuable British contribu- 
tions to intellectual progress during the nineteenth century. 
A hundred years ago the spirit of the eighteenth century still con- 
trolled much of the then orthodox geology. Jameson’s “ Elements of 
Geognosy,” of which the preface is dated January 15, 1808, taught, as 
the certain conclusions of geology, doctrines that had been reached by 
applying prejudiced speculation to imaginary facts. It was a manual 
of pure @ priori, Wernerian geology. The author claimed that to 
Werner “ we owe almost everything that is truly valuable in this im- 
portant branch of knowledge,” and that it was Werner “ who had 
discovered the general structure of the crust of the globe and pointed 
out the true mode of examining and ascertaining those great relations 
which it is one of the principal objects of geognosy to investigate.” 
But Jameson’s book was the death song of Wernerian geology in 
British science. A new geology was developing, and the Geological 
Society of London ushered in its birth. No more should observations 
be made through the distorting medium of preconceived fancies! No 
more should geology be inspired by that heedless spirit which cares 
not to distinguish between fancy and fact! With youthful vigor the 
“Address to the Geological Section, British Association for the Advancement 
of Science, by Prof. J. W. Gregory, D. Sce., F. R. S., president of the section. 
Seventy-seventh annual general meeting, held at Leicester, August 1, 1907. 
41780—08 24. 311 
