A CENTURY OF GEOLOGY. 267 



of the nineteenth century. These must l)c borne in mind in all we 

 have further to suy of the progress of geology through the century. 



AYhen the cejitury opened, the war between the Neptunists and the 

 Plutonists, between the Wernerites and the Huttonites, was still going 

 on, but was approaching the usual result in such cases of dispute, yiz, 

 the recognition of the fact that there was truth on both sides, and they 

 must be combined into a more comprehensive view. The chief differ- 

 ence of opinion still remaining was as to the relative importance of the 

 two agencies, aqueous and igneous. Two great advances took place 

 about the beginning of this century. William Smith, by patient, pains- 

 taking field observation and mapping, laid the foundation of stratig- 

 raphy; and Cuvier, by his profound and brilliant studies of the 

 wonderful discoveries of extinct manmials in the Eocene basin of Paris, 

 laid the foundations of paleontology. These researches placed in 

 clearer light than ever before the existence of other time- worlds before 

 the present one. William Smith published his tabular view of the 

 British Strata in 1790, but his map was not completed and published 

 until 1815. Cuvier's great work on the Organic Remains of the Paris 

 Basin was pul>lished in 1808. 



Thus, early in the century the two bases of our science were laid b^^ 

 Smith and Cuvier. We now proceed to touch lightly onl}' the main 

 steps of subsequent growth through the century. 



As, in the previous century and the early part of this, the discussion 

 was between the opposite schools of Neptunists and Plutonists, Avith 

 the final result of reconciliation in a more scientitic view which com- 

 bined these two surface views into a stereoscopic reality, so now the 

 discussions began between catastrophism and uniformitarianism, and 

 ended with a similar tinal result. Geologists, in the earh^ part of the 

 century, before the study of causes and processes now in operation 

 was generally acknowledged as the only ]-ational basis of a true scien- 

 tific geology, seeing the frequent imconformities in the geological 

 series and the apparently sudden changes of life forms associated Avith 

 these unconformities, were naturally led to the conclusion that the 

 whole history of the earth consisted of a series of sudden and violent 

 catastrophes l^y which the bed of the ocean was suddenly raised and 

 its waters precipitated on the land as a great wave of translation, car- 

 rying universal ruin and extermination of all life in its course. Such 

 catastrophes were supposed to be followed by periods of quiet, during 

 which the new earth was repeopled, by direct act of creation, with new 

 forms of life adapted to the new conditions. 



This view was in perfect accord with the then accepted doctrine of 

 the supernatural origin and the permanence of species. Species were 

 supposed to have been created at once, out of hand, without natural 

 process, in some place (center of specific origin), spread in all direc- 

 tions as far as physical conditions would allow, but reuiained unchanged 



