374 MaeCulloch"s System of Geology. 



and a more rational direction to the pursuit. Yet the geolo- 

 gist seems in clanger of forgetting that it is but one part of his 

 science. Its details belong to zoology and botany ; and he 

 loses sight of his main object when he pursues these minutiae 

 to the neglect of their more interesting connections with the 

 history of the globe. Still more deeply does he err, when he 

 imagines that a theory of the earth can be founded on what 

 involves so small a portion of its structure and history. It is 

 doubtless, essential to know these objects ; as, to arrange and 

 name them is the grammar of this department. But it is un- 

 fortunately true, that whether the contemplation of minutiae 

 disables the mind for wider views, or that only a minute mind 

 can be engrossed by such things, the power of profiting by 

 collections and their study, diminishes in proportion to their 

 extent and the activity of collectors, whether it be in natural 

 history or books. 



" The true business of a geologist, here, is a of a far higher 

 character. It is to determine the antiquity of these objects 

 and that of the earths in which they lived, the waters which 

 they inhabited, and the former places of those ; to explain 

 why they are now imbedded in rocks when once free, why ele- 

 vated on the land when once beneath the sea, why they are 

 partially distributed, and far more ; as it is also his office to 

 see how these things explain the history of the earth. If 

 found in alluvial soils, other inquiries of an analogous nature 

 arise, relating especially to the later history of the globe. 

 And in the study of the objects themselves, if he undertakes 

 the office of the zoologist and botanist, it is his business to com- 

 pare the dead with the existing races ; through which it is his 

 own proper office to draw inferences as to the history of the 

 living creations of the earth, as to that of the earth itself." — 

 Vol. i. pp. 406, 407. 



The views of climate in this chapter, (Vol. i. p. 432, &c.) 

 which do not admit of abridgement, are vague and most unsa- 

 tisfactory, endeavouring to prove that we have no evidence of 

 a change of climate. 



Perhaps Professor Sedgewick and Mr Murchison could tell 

 us something about the following passage : " The evidence for 

 the existence of orthoceratites abundant in a quartz rock in Su- 

 therland, which follows gneiss and is connected with it, I consi- 

 der to be as perfect as we are entitled to expect on such a subject, 



