Notices respecting New Books. 229 



resources is reduced to something nearer equality, when deeper and 

 thinner coal-seams must be wrought, when poorer ores of the metals 

 must be more highly prized, and when the products of our manufac- 

 tures can only be brought into commerce at higher prices, then must 

 the star of England's prosperity decline, unless we keep our vantage- 

 ground by the superior skill and knowledge to which technical edu- 

 cation must greatly contribute." 



Following the lectures in the order in which we accidentally 

 perused them, the lecture of Mr. Ramsay next presents itself. He 

 refers in his introduction to the resistance offered to the earlier ad- 

 vances of geological inquiry. " Geology was not so fortunate as 

 chemistry, when princes vied with each other in the encouragement 

 of alchemical discovery. There was no heresy in the transmutation 

 of the baser metals into gold. Geology, on the contrary, was for a 

 long time generally esteemed a pestilent heresy ; and though its cul- 

 tivators escaped the prison, yet even in our day a few angry men are 

 not wanting, who, steeped in ignorance or a mistaken zeal, still 

 re-echo the time-worn cry." 



The lecturer arranges his subject under two principal heads- 

 Physical Geography and Palaeontology; the former dealing with the 

 nature and modes of formation of rocks, and the latter with the 

 organic forms which they contain. The beautiful investigations of 

 Bunsen in Iceland are referred to as a fine example of the bearing of 

 chemistry upon the metamorphism of rocks and the theory of vol- 

 canoes. Werner and Hutton were the first to generalize in a grand 

 and comprehensive manner the facts and speculations of previous 

 observers. " Of Werner it might be said that his merit consisted in 

 this, ' that he infused into the body of the science a new spirit.' 

 The breadth of his views respecting the universal superposition of 

 strata, his application of their structure to mining, and the eloquent 

 sincerity with which he advocated his doctrines, raised an enthusiasm 

 that spread over Europe and gained numerous disciples to the cause." 

 The lecturer pays a noble tribute to the memory of Hutton. "Of 

 all men who have hitherto illustrated the science of geology none is 

 greater than Hutton, whose name was so long used as their watch- 

 word by the opponents of the Wernerians. He at once threw aside 

 the minor proofless speculations with which older writers bewildered 

 their readers ; and by the strict union of observation and generaliza- 

 tion his comprehensive mind grasped the main outlines of the phy- 

 sical section of the subject, and brought geology within the pale of 

 inductive reasoning." To William Smith, however, the lecturer 

 considers "that we owe the first clear enunciation of the law of the 

 stratigraphical succession of species— a law alike great in theoretical 

 results and in the strictly practical applications arising therefrom." 

 It is interesting to observe the earnest devotion displayed by the 

 lecturer in rescuing the memory of Smith from undeserved obscurity • 

 indeed we have felt as keen a pleasure in looking through these lee' 

 tures as through spectacles, into the men who delivered them, as in 

 the contemplation of the results and arguments which they bring 

 forward. The Government School of Mines may, we think, be con- 



