WEST OF ENGLAND JOURNAL 



SefliO^igl /^m® tOTlKi^TOfliaio 



No. II. APRIL, 1835. Vol. I. 



PART I.— SCIENCE. 



ESSAY ON GEOLOGY, 



WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE GEOLOGICAL ADVANTAGES OF 



BRISTOL. 



BY THE REV. W. D. CONYBEARE. 



( Concluded frmn p. 19. J 



In our former article we have endeavoured to give a concise view of the 

 general principles of Geology — we shall now follow up the subject by 

 pointing out to our readers the local facilities they enjoy for bringing their 

 own observation to bear upon those principles, and thus confirming or cor- 

 recting them, by the means best calculated to impart satisfactory conviction 

 to the mind. Personal observation and practical application are indeed 

 very generally the best schools of science ; but this is still more especially 

 true with regard to Geology ; this pursuit can never be adequately culti- 

 vated in the study, nor even in the museum : the field of nature, in all its 

 fair varieties — the sea cliff — the rocky ravine — and the mountain mass, are 

 the true theatres where alone geological lectures can be efficiently delivered. 

 It constitutes, perhaps, the great charm of this science, that to it the 

 praise which Cicero attributes to general literature, " Haec studia delectant 

 Domi, nobiscum peregrinantur, rustlcantur" is in the very liighest degree 

 applicable J for of what other pursuit can it be truly said, that it accompa- 

 nies us in our foreign travels and rural walks ? It necessarily leads us 

 into the finest scenes of nature, and it adds even to those scenes, by the 

 speculations with which it associates tliem, a novel and even a sublimer 

 interest, by placing them before us in the light of monuments and memo- 

 rials of stupendous convulsions, compared with which, all that nature at 

 present exhibits of great and terrible, the ravages of the earthquakes and 

 volcanoes of these days, slirink into comparative insignificance, and are 

 but, as it were, the last struggles of the expiring giants of classical My- 

 thology. And the feelings thus suggested, will acquire a still higher tone 



No. 2.— Vol. I. N 



