The Earth and its Early History 



of the Academy until 1774, eleven years after the 

 original discovery. 



Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817) was a man 

 of vast influence owing to his power of impressing his 

 opinions upon his hearers. He was an enthusiastic 

 teacher and drew men from all countries to the Mining 

 Academy at Freiberg, where he was appointed In- 

 spector and Teacher of Mining and Mineralogy in 

 his twenty-fifth year a position which he held for 

 forty years. 



He had from his earliest childhood been brought up 

 amongst minerals and things pertaining to them. His 

 father was inspector of Count Solms' foundry at Wehrau 

 in Upper Lusatia, and the boy Werner was allowed to 

 see occasionally, as a reward for industry, a small collec- 

 tion of "ores and spars" which his father had gathered 

 together. 



In spite of his enthusiasm for study he stands out in 

 later life as a dogmatic theorist " intolerant of opinions 

 different from his own, training his pupils in an artificial 

 and erroneous system, and sending them out into the 

 world not patiently to investigate Nature, but to apply 

 everywhere the uncouth terminology and hypothetical 

 principles which he had taught them." 



He was directly the cause of the great basalt con- 

 troversy, though he appears to have taken little part in 

 it himself. 



One of Werner's fundamental doctrines was the 

 existence of universal formations, and he taught that 

 these formations were to be recognized all the world 

 over in the same order and with the same characters, 

 but, strange to say, at the time when he brought out 



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