VI PREFACE. 



Pythagoras, and Aristotle, and Strabo, were, to a certain extent, geologists ; 

 although Ovid puts into the mouth of the Saurian philosopher 



" Vidi factas ex sequore terras : 



Et procul a pelago conchas jacuere marina? ; 



Et vetus inventa est in montibus anchora summis ; 



Quodque fuit campus, vallem decursus aquarum 



Fecit ; et eluvie mons est deductus in sequor : 



Eque paludosa siccis humus aret arenis ; 



Quseque sitim tulerant, stagnata paludibus hument." 



although, from time to time, theories of the earth have been published, 

 and hypotheses the most crude, and fanciful, and illusory have been pro- 

 pounded ; although men have been found so blind as to argue in favour of 

 a plastic force ; although, almost even in our own days, Vulcanist would 

 have submerged Neptunist in his own aqueous deposits, and Neptunist 

 would have torrefied Vulcanist in the igneous causes which he advocated ; 

 although, for upwards of two thousand years, geology may be said to have 

 had its students and its advocates ; yet till within the last half century it 

 has never deserved the name of a science. Mixed up and confounded with 

 cosmogony, it continued in a state of flux and reflux, at one time making 

 advances, at another retrograding, till Hutton, in 1795, declared that 

 "geology was in no ways concerned with questions as to the origin of 

 things." Nor was it till, throwing aside all preconceived notions, geolo- 

 gists determined to found, and gradually advance, step by step, their 

 theories on sound induction, that geology, in the magnitude and sublimity 

 of the objects of which it treats, second only to astronomy, assumed its 

 proper position in the order of scientific pursuits. 



With the great increase of knowledge in geology, there necessarily 

 sprang up a new nomenclature, and although this particular branch of 

 technological lexicography may, and does, admit of much modification, it 

 appears to me that it has at this time become sufficiently established to 

 warrant, and call for, the issuing of a dictionary of geological terms. 



Nomenclature being in itself an important part of science, I trust I may 

 be excused for offering hi this place a few observations on the subject. It 

 is perhaps a very natural weakness that men should desire to distinguish 

 things by names of their own appointing ; but, inasmuch as a redundancy 

 of names is prejudicial to the interests of science ; perplexing, and often 

 disgusting, to the student ; and, in fact, raises an unnecessary obstruction 

 in the path of knowledge; it becomes a subject of grave consideration 

 whether the imposition of a new name, in lieu of one already become con- 

 ventional, though that which has become conventional may, probably, not 

 be the best or most appropriate that could have been chosen, be not a 

 hazardous and injudicious course. It has been remarked by one of the 



