308 Britain's Heritage of Science 



CHAPTER XII 



GEOLOGY 



IN tracing the progress of any line of scientific research 

 it very often happens that our enquiries are largely 

 centred round the life of one man. It may be that he has 

 only collected and put into shape ideas which have been 

 growing in men's minds when at last a flash of genius has 

 illuminated the paths of research and the wisdom of many 

 has been crystallized by the wit of one. 



It may be that a fortuitous display of phenomena not 

 before exhibited has appealed to the imagination of men, or 

 combinations of opportunity and talent have started local 

 intelligence upon the paths of observation. 



The striking variety and obvious relations of surface- 

 features and rock-characters in England have undoubtedly 

 had much influence in starting geological observations in 

 this country. England is only a small bit of the contorted 

 western margin of the uplifted Eurasian continent. The 

 great folds which brought it all up within reach of denudation 

 are traversed here and there by belts of more sharply 

 crumpled rock which give pause to the periodically encroach- 

 ing seas. More than one such system of plications has pro- 

 duced the frilled edge of western Europe with its association 

 of harder and softer rocks and has thus formed the natural 

 breakwaters which have held back for untold ages the 

 tremendous billows of the Atlantic Ocean hurled against 

 them by the South- West winds. In tracing the progress of 

 English Geology by reference to the lives of those who have 

 done most to promote it we shall soon find that it was seldom 

 mere accident that started them on their way. 



We cannot satisfactorily discuss the influence of indivi- 

 duals upon Geological discovery without realising that 



