232 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



One of the first tasks undertaken by Jameson after his ap- 

 pointment as Professor of Natural History was the publica- 

 tion of a " Mineralogical Description of the County of Dum- 

 fries." This work was dedicated to Werner and Kirwan, a 

 conjunction of names which must have been to the Huttonians 

 ominous of the line to be taken by the new professor. The 

 book was intended to be the first of a series of similar essays, 

 in which the mineralogy of every part of Scotland should be 

 described ; but it remains the only one of the series ever com- 

 pleted. It may be taken, like Daubuisson's " Monograph on 

 the Basalts of Saxony," as a typical example of the Wernerian 

 geognostical method. 



In introducing his volume to the notice of its readers, Jame- 

 son informed them that its plan, being that which he intended 

 to follow in all his future labours in geognosy, was different 

 from any hitherto proposed ; but that, from its concordance 

 with the principles of the Wernerian geognosy, he believed 

 that it would be found to give a clear and comprehensive 

 view of the external aspect and internal structure and mate- 

 rials of a region. He begins with a sketch of the physical 

 geography of Dumfriesshire, which gives an opportunity for 

 introducing the Wernerian cosmogony. He then proceeds to 

 describe the distribution of the various kinds of rock or 



da sein heimathliches Land ganz vorzuglich. geeignet ist die Verhaltnisse der 

 Diuge zu durctschauen. AUein im Unglauben an vulkanische Wirkungen 

 wurden die Beobachtungen einseitig aufgenommen und Erklarungs-Weisen 

 gewalilt welclie die Schwierigkeiten nur weiter hinausschoben, ohne sie zu 

 lieben, ja im Gegentheile unauflosliche Zweifel enstehen liessen. So musste 

 Jameson beim besten Willen mid bei der grossten Walirheits-Liebe in gewissen 

 Irrtliiimern verliarren ; selbst bei manchen seiner neuern Schriften glaubt man 

 in eine viel altere Zeit hiniiberzublicken. " Full justice is then done by this 

 writer to the value of Jameson's geognostical work. — {Die Basalt-Gelilde. 

 Stuttgart, 1832. Band, i., 39.) In another passage of the same book, von 

 Leonhard thus writes of the influence of Wernerianism in Scotland : " Ob- 

 wohl Schottland die Heimath des beriihmten Stifters der plutonischen Lehre, 

 wo das schone Licht vulkanischen Wissens, des freiern Denkens sich entziin- 

 dete, seit den lezten Jahrzehnden viele undhochst wichtige Aufklarung geboten 

 liber den Gegenstand, welcher uns beschaftigt \i-e., die Basalte], so bedarf es 

 dennoch nur einiger Kenntniss der neuern dortlandischen Litteratur, um zu 

 wissen, das selbst auf diesem, fiir den Yulcanismus so musterhaften Boden, 

 die antineptunische Meinung keineswegs die Jierrschende gewesen." — (O?;. city 

 p. 21.) This was deliberately published even so late as a quarter of a century 

 after the founding of the Wernerian Society. 



