MacCulloch's System of Geology. 363 



the theme of many a long and dreary communication which has 

 been read to the Geological Society, and which it required all the 

 ingenuity and good taste of the members to enliven by the 

 agreeable extempore discussions which succeed the readings. 

 In most cases the writers described what they saw, and that 

 was all. Stones were to them as flowers to Peter Bell : 



l ' A primrose on a river's brim 

 A yellow primrose was to him, 

 And it was nothing more." 



" The case was not as in former days, when the crystals of a 

 single hand-specimen were supposed capable of revealing the 

 history of the original condition of the world. No doubt anion «• 

 all this mass of detail, (most valuable and indispensable, notwith- 

 standing its tendency to tiresomeness,) there did occur and must 

 occur suggestions and opinions as to the causes and connexions of 

 the appearances described. It was the glimmering of dim and 

 distant truths of this kind, which often gave the subject the 

 charm of an oriental fiction ; and lured the inquirers onwards, 



" O'er bog or steep, through straight, rough, dense, or rare." 



But that which was truly admirable, was the constancy and firm- 

 ness with which our geologists abstained from either dwelling 

 upon such speculations as important, positive, certain, and lead- 

 ing points in the science ; or from considering an assent to any 

 such opinions as a proof of the orthodoxy and soundness of 

 geological faith of any of their brethren. There was among 

 them a strong suspicion of all generalities ; an inflexible rejec- 

 tion of every thing which referred to Mr Jenkinson's favour- 

 ite topic of ' the cosmogony or creation of the world ;' and a 

 resolute determination not to be misled, even by the most tempt- 

 ing promises of a beautiful and consistent theory, into the 

 rashness of generalizing from immature and partial observa- 

 tions." 



The singular discovery of the relation of fossil organic rr- 

 mains to the strata in which they arc found, to which the 

 beautiful collections of Woodward show that he had so nearly 

 arrived, was reserved to immortalize the name of Smith. Such 

 a discovery could not fail to absorb the attention of the embryo 

 school of geologists who made the dogged determination i<> 

 observe nature and nature alone; and almost the whole weight 



