in Precision of the Werner ian System 129 



early part of his career when his personal experience was 

 extremely limited. And having once adopted them, he 

 maintained them to the last. His methodical mind 

 demanded some hypothesis that would allow him to 

 group, in definite and genetic connection, all the facts 

 then known regarding the structure of the earth's crust. 

 His first sketch of a classification of rocks shows by its 

 meagreness how slender at that time was his practical 

 acquaintance with rocks in the field. The whole of the 

 Primitive formations enumerated by him are only twelve 

 in number, and some of these were confessedly rare. As 

 years went on, he intercalated new varieties, introduced 

 the division of Transition rocks, and was compelled to 

 reduplicate some of his primitive formations by having to 

 find places also for them among the Floetz series. 



Yet with all these shiftings to and fro the apparent 

 symmetry and conspicuous method of the system were 

 retained to the end. No Saxon mine could have had its 

 successive levels more regularly planned and driven, than 

 the crust of the earth was parcelled out among the various 

 Wernerian universal formations. Each of these had its 

 definite chronological place. When you stood on granite, 

 you knew you were at the base and root of all things 

 mundane. When you looked on a hill of Eloetz-trap you 

 saw before you a relic of one of the last acts of precipita- 

 tion of the ancient universal ocean. 



But Nature has not arranged her materials with the 

 artificial and doctrinaire precision of amineralogical cabinet. 

 Werner's system might temporarily suffice for the little part 

 of the little kingdom of Saxony which, when he promulgated 

 his views, he had imperfectly explored. But as his experi- 



K 



