VI 



Conclusion 287 



Other five years had to pass before the method began to 

 be taken up in Germany, and a still longer time before it 

 came into general use all over the world. 



Such instances as these lead to two reflections. On 

 the one hand, they assure us of the permanent vitality 

 of truth. The seed may be long in showing signs of 

 life, but these signs come at last. On the other hand, 

 we are warned to be on the outlook for unrecognized 

 meanings and applications in the work of our own day 

 and in that of older date. We are taught the necessity 

 not only of keeping ourselves abreast of the progress of 

 science at the present time, but also of making ourselves 

 acquainted as far as we possibly can with the labours of 

 our predecessors. It is not enough to toil in our little 

 corner of the field. We must keep ourselves in touch 

 with what is going on now, and what has been done 

 during the past in that and surrounding parts of the 

 domain of science. Many a time we may find that the 

 results obtained by some fellow-labourer, though they may 

 have had but little significance for him, flash a flood of 

 light on what we have been doing ourselves. 



I am only too painfully aware how increasingly difficult 

 it is to keep pace with the ever- rising tide of geological 

 literature. The science itself has so widened, and the 

 avenues to publication have so prodigiously multiplied, 

 that one is almost driven in despair to become a specialist, 

 and confine one's reading to that portion of the literature 

 which deals with one's own more particular branch of the 

 science. But this narrowing of our range has a markedly 

 prejudicial effect on the character of our work. The only 

 consolation we can find is the conviction, borne in upon 



