Rev. W. D. Conybeare's Report on Geology. +29 



of the Geological Society of London and the publication of its Transac- 

 tions, aresuccinctly related, together with the subsequent labours both 

 of English and foreign geologists ; this preliminary sketch of the pro- 

 gress of the science being brought down to the year 1821, at which 

 period the first series of the Geological Transactions closed. 



" I have been principally induced, in the present summary of the 

 progress of geological science, to draw a line at the close of the first 

 series of our Geological Transactions in 1821, because an author al- 

 ready alluded to [Dr. Macculloch] has asserted in a recent publica- 

 tion, that ' since that year geology has received scarcely any valuable 

 additions, and not a single fundamental one.' Drawing aline at this 

 point, therefore, I shall endeavour to give a slight sketch of the con- 

 tributions which have really marked the progress of the science during 

 this supposed period of inanition, leaving it to your judgement how far 

 they reallv deserve the above depreciating character. 



" Now although previously to this period the main features of En- 

 glish geology had been very amply illustrated, yet even in this pro- 

 vince, where least remained to be accomplished, our additions have 

 neither been few nor unimportant; and if we turn to Continental 

 Europe, we shall find that what was then comparatively a blank, has 

 been now filled up to such a degree that we are actually in possession 

 of nearly as good materials for a general geological map of Europe 

 at the present day as we were for one of England only at the former 

 date ; and to this, observers from our own country have contributed 

 no less than their ablest continental brethren. Nor let it be imagined 

 that this only supposes an extension of our knowledge in insulated 

 details : it is in truth far otherwise ; since extensive comparative 

 geology affords the only materials for obtaining the fundamental facts 

 of our science. It is by this inductive process alone that we can hope 

 to collect and combine the data which exist for what may be termed 

 a general geological chronology. It is thus only that we can ascer- 

 tain to what extent and under what modifications the same geological 

 causes have acted at the same epochs. It is thus only that we can 

 learn, what have been the violence, extent, and epochs of the disturb- 

 ing and elevating forces which have affected the strata, — whether si- 

 milar groups of organic remains universally, and in the most distant 

 countries, characterize contemporaneous geological deposits, — or 

 whether those zoological species are not rather restricted (like most 

 of the species of the actual period,) to different geographical districts. 

 All these are evidently questions at the very root of any sound geolo- 

 gical theory, whenever the time shall be fully ripe for constructing 

 such a theory ; and although it were assuredly premature to assert 

 that this time is even yet completely arrived, we may nevertheless 

 boldly assert that no eye at all capable of appreciating these problems, 

 or the appropriate evidence tending towards their solution, can glance 

 over the discoveries of any single year since 1821, without observing a 

 very rapid accumulation of the most valuable materials for their elu- 

 cidation. During the same period, moreover, our knowledge of the 

 principal volcanic districts, both those which are still in activity and 

 those now extinct, has been advanced to the greatest degree of pre- 



