i2o The Founders of Geology LECT. 



most singular was the position it took up with regard to 

 the evidence for disturbances of the earth's crust, and for 

 the universality and potency of what is now termed igneous 

 action. A hundred years before Werner's time Steno had 

 pointed to the inclined and broken strata of Northern Italy 

 as evidence of dislocation of the crust. The Italian ob- 

 servers, and especially Moro, familiar with the phenomena 

 of earthquakes and volcanoes, had been impressed by the 

 manifest proofs of the potency of the internal energy of 

 the earth upon its outer form. But these early adumbra- 

 tions of the truth were all brushed aside by the oracle of 

 Freiberg. I have tried to imagine the current of thought 

 by which Werner was led to this crowning absurdity of 

 his system, and I think we may trace it in the history of 

 his relation to the basalt hills of Saxony. The question is 

 of some interest, not only as a curious piece of human 

 psychology, but because it was on this very point of the 

 origin of basalt that the Wernerian ship finally struck and 

 foundered. 



The year after his appointment as teacher of mineralogy, 

 Werner visited the famous Stolpen, one of the most pictur- 

 esque castle-crowned basalt hills of Saxony, to which I 

 have already referred in connection with Agricola's revival 

 of the old word " basalt." He had probably by this time 

 begun to form in his mind a more or less definite picture 

 of chemical precipitation from aqueous solution, as applied 

 to the history of rock -masses. But be this as it may, he 

 was aware that basalt, by not a few observers before his 

 time, had been claimed as a rock of volcanic origin. How 

 far he had then made up his mind as to the formation of 

 that rock must remain in doubt. But he tells himself that 



