98. Mr. Weaver's Geological Remarks. [Aua. 
bedded or interstratified formations, as more peculiarly character- 
istic of those mineral masses to which the term has been applied. 
The general tendency to horizontality, increasing from the older 
to the newer floetz formations, is, it is true, a distinctive mark ~ 
of these formations, but still horizontality is not necessarily 
implied in the word floetz. And, even if it were, the occasional 
departure from the horizontal position would be no more an 
objection to the use of the term, than the occasional horizontal 
disposition of primary strata would be to their general designa- 
tion as inclined. Al} that can be said is, that in both cases the 
general rule is subject to exceptions. 
To the continued/use of the term floetz, as applied to any part 
of the carboniferous series, an objection has been raised upon 
the supposition that the original sense in which it was employed 
has been departed from (Introduction, p. vi. and Outlines, p. 
352); but as that supposition has been shown in the course of 
this paper to rest wholly on a misconception of the true import 
and application of the term, the objection vanishes. I may fur- 
ther add, that the value of a word consists in its conveying a 
definite idea to the mind, and so long as terms of established 
usage thus perform their office (in which respect the word floetz 
is not deficient), to exchange them for new can only be justified 
by showing that the latter answer the purpose better. 
In conclusion I must observe, that in awarding the meed of 
praise due to the services of Werner, French writers appear in 
general to have been more just than the English. Nota few of 
the latter seem to forget, or not to consider, that though others 
might before his time have hit upon the general division of rocks 
into primary and secondary, yet geology, as a science, had no 
existence. To Werner belongs, in the first place, the merit of 
introducing a nicer discrimination in the examination of simple 
minerals, and of inventing an appropriate language by which 
they might be described and distinguished, previous to which 
mineralogical science was quite in its infancy. And, in the 
second place, to him also belongs the chief merit, not merely of 
distinguishing and giving names to rocks, but of accurately 
marking out both the grand distinctions of primary, transition, 
and floetz classes, and the various principal formations of which 
those classes consist. If then it be the glory of the Saxon to 
have laid the broad foundations of the edifice, let that of the 
Briton and Frank be to complete the structure. 
