MacCulloch's System of Geology. 361 



pear to us) of the nature of the science, which have been 

 wholly overlooked by some other writers, and which has led 

 to an erroneous view of the qualifications requisite to the geo- 

 logist, and of the great objects of his science to unfold. 



Before geology had acquired " a local habitation and a 

 name," the efforts of early speculators were directed, as is well 

 known, to the wide and uncertain field of pure theory con- 

 nected with the origin of the globe ; the connection of scrip- 

 turally historical with physical events, and especially the traces 

 and effects of the Mosaic deluge. The descriptive portion of 

 the science was then a blank. It would have been thought 

 equally beneath the dignity of science to classify rocks and 

 simple minerals, or to descend into a minute comparison of fos- 

 sil organic remains with the existing species. Why should 

 those to whom Nature has revealed her ample page scrutinize 

 the particular mode of her operation, which could, they 

 imagined, add little to the knowledge of general facts or 

 laws ? Why should the phenomena of active causes be ex- 

 amined, the destructive influence of volcanos and earth- 

 quakes, or the devastating operations of seas and rivers, when 

 a comet might as readily be conceived to torrefy the terrestrial 

 nucleus from pole to pole by the approach of its ignited mass, 

 by its attraction to change the axis of rotation, and by the 

 action of a vast tidal wave submerge the mountains, and raise 

 to light and air the peopled cavities of the ancient ocean ? No 

 dynamical effect was too powerful for such resources, and as 

 new phenomena arose, new undcr-plots were addeil to thedrama 

 of creation ; new trains of wheels, no matter how cumbrous, 

 were added without mercy to the old one, till the hands were 

 made once more to tell true upon the dial-plate, and permit- 

 ted to remain till new discoveries rendered new substitutions 

 necessary : — 



how they will wield 



The nii^liiy frame, how build, unbuild, contrive, 

 To save appearances. 



An advancing state of physical science led men to amend the 

 laxity which cosmogpnal theories had assumed in the days of 



Burnet and Whiston, and the speculations of Iliition and 



Werner, both of whom gave much weight to facts of observa- 

 tion, raised a new and very superior class of geologists. What- 



