vi The Founders of Geology 



ground. I had often been struck by the limited acquaint- 

 ance with the historical development of geology possessed 

 even by men who have done good service in enlarging 

 the boundaries of the science. English and American 

 geologists have for the most part contented themselves 

 with the excellent, but necessarily brief summary of the 

 subject given by Lyell in the introductory chapters of his 

 classic Principles, no fuller digest of geological history 

 having been published in their language. It seemed to 

 me, therefore, that perhaps no more generally interesting 

 and appropriate theme for my purpose could be selected 

 than the story of the evolution of geology. The neces- 

 sarily restricted number of lectures to be given would 

 not admit of a discursive survey of the whole history, 

 but a useful end might doubtless be served if a limited 

 period of geological progress were selected and treated 

 in rather greater detail than had hitherto been usual, 

 and with especial reference to the personal achieve- 

 ments of the leaders to whose labours the progress had 

 mainly been due. Accordingly I determined to take this 

 subject for my discourses, and to select the period between 

 the middle of the last and the close of the second decade 

 of the present century an interval of about seventy years, 

 full of peculiar interest in the development of science, for 

 they witnessed the laying of the foundations of geology. 



But even of this limited section of the history it was 

 obviously impossible to attempt an exhaustive discussion. 

 Without for a moment aiming to cover all the ground, I 



