484 



NATURE 



[September 17, 1903 



have been successfully overcome the right theory follows 

 naturally, and verification is not usually a very lengthy 

 process. In Geology, on the other hand, theory is more 

 quickly arrived at from the numerous facts ; but the price 

 is paid in the patience required for testing and the ruthless 

 refusal to strain fact to fit theory. Every hypothesis leads 

 back to facts again and again for verification, extension, 

 and improvement. 



Many of the leading conclusions of our science have not 

 yet become part of the common stock of the knowledge of 

 the world ; indeed they are not even fully realised by many 

 men eminent in their own sciences. The momentum given 

 by Werner and Playfair, Phillips and Jukes, Sedgwick and 

 Lyell, and other pioneers of the fighting science, has died 

 down, and in the interval of hard work, detailed observ- 

 ation, minute subdivision, involved classification, and 

 pedantic nomenclature which has followed, and which I 

 believe to be only the prelude to an epoch of more important 

 generalisation in the immediate future, it has been difficult 

 for an outsider to see the wood for the trees. He has 

 hardly yet realised that facts as vital to the social and 

 economic well-being of the people at large, and conclusions 

 of as great importance in the progress of the science 

 and of as far-reaching consequence in the allied sciences, 

 are being wrung from Nature now as in the past. 



"The unimaginable touch of Time," the antiquity of 

 ;the globe as the abode of life, the absolute proof of the 

 -evolution of life given by fossils, the proofs of change and 

 -evolution in geography and climate, the antiquity of man, 

 •the nature of the earth's interior, the tremendous cumulative 

 effect of small causes, the definite position of deposits of 

 economic value, the rdle played by denudation and earth- 

 movement in the development of landscape, the view 

 of the earth as a living organism with the heyday of its 

 -youth, its maturity, and its future old age and death, to 

 mention but a few of our great principles, furnish us with 

 conceptions which cannot fail to quicken the attention and 

 inspire the thought of students of history, geography, and 

 other sciences. 



Now that these things are capable of definite proof, that 

 -they are of real significance in the cognate sciences, and 

 of actual economic value, above all now that the nineteenth 

 century, the geological century, has closed, that the heroic 

 age is over, that we have passed the stages of scepticism 

 and religious intolerance and reached the stage " when 

 -everybody knew it before," it might be expected that a 

 fairly accurate knowledge and appreciation of these prin- 

 ■ciples should form part of the common stock of knowledge, 

 and be a starting-point in the teaching of allied sciences. 



Another feature which adds to the attractiveness of geo- 

 logical observations is their immediate usefulness from 

 many points of view. The relief and outline of any area 

 are as closely related to its rocky framework as the form 

 of a human being is related to his skeleton and muscles. 

 The geological surveyor recognises how every rise and fall 

 is the direct reflex of some corresponding difference in the 

 underlying rocks ; he seeks to observe and explain the 

 ordinary as well as anomalous ground-features, every one 

 of which conveys some meaning to him. 



A geological basis for the classification and grouping of 

 surface-features is the only one which is likely to be satis- 

 factory in the end, because it is the only one founded on a 

 definite natural principle, the relation of cause to effect. 

 It is not without good reason that the topographic and 

 geological surveys of the United States are combined under 

 one management, and nowhere else are the topographic 

 results more accurate and satisfactory. Landscape is traced 

 back to its ultimate source, and consequently sketched in 

 with more feeling for the country and greater accuracy of 

 knowledge than would otherwise be possible. Geologists 

 were among the first to cry out for increasing accuracy 

 and detail in our Government maps, and they have con- 

 sistently made the utmost use of the best of these maps as 

 fast as they appeared. With the publication of each type 

 of map, hachured, contoured, six-inch, twenty-five inch, the 

 value and accuracy of geological mapping have advanced 

 step by step. Wherever the topography is better delineated 

 than usual, the facilities are greater for accurate geological 

 work, and the best geological maps, and those in greatest 



NO. 1768, VOL. 68] 



demand, are always those based on the most minute and 

 detailed topographic work. On the other hand geologists 

 are training up a class of men who can read and interpret 

 the inner meaning of these maps, and make the fullest use 

 of the splendid facilities given by the minute accuracy of 

 the ordnance work. 



Lord Roberts has recently complained that the cadets at 

 Woolwich are unable to read and interpret maps, and he 

 " strongly advised them to set about improving themselves 

 in this respect, or they would find themselves heavily handi- 

 capped in the future." I believe that the only training in 

 this subject before entering the Royal Military Academy 

 and the Royal Military College has been that given to those 

 candidates who have taken up Geology for their entrance 

 examination. By encouraging these students to study and 

 draw maps and sections of their own districts, and to e.x- 

 plain and draw sections across geological maps generally, 

 thus accounting for surface-features, the examiners have 

 compelled this small group of candidates to see deeper into 

 a map than ordinary people. If only this training had been 

 encouraged and advanced and made use of later, the Com- 

 mander-in-Chief would have had no cause of complaint with 

 regard to these particular men. Looking at a map is one 

 thing ; working at it, seeing into it, and getting out of it 

 what is wanted from the vast mass of information crammed 

 into it, is quite another ; and Geology is the very best and 

 perhaps the only means of compelling such a close study 

 of maps as to enable students to seize upon the salient 

 features of a country from a map as quickly and accurately 

 as if the country itself were spread out before them. The 

 geologist is compelled to work out and classify for himself 

 th° features he observes on his maps, such as scarps and 

 terraces, crags and waterfalls, streams and gorges, passes 

 and ridges, the run of the roads, canals, and railways, the 

 nature and accessibility of the coast, and all those features 

 which make the difference between easy-going and a difficult 

 country. When he has worked his way over a map in this 

 fashion that map becomes to him a real and telling picture 

 of the country itself. 



Experience, bitter experience, in South Africa has shown 

 the necessity not only for good maps and map-reading, but 

 for that which is the most priceless possession alike of the 

 best field geologists and of the best strategists, a good " eye 

 for a country." It has been said that the Boer war was 

 a geographical war ; but it was even more, and, especially 

 in its later stages, a topographic war. Again and again 

 the Boers aroused our astonishment and admiration by the 

 way in which their topographic knowledge and instinct 

 enabled them to fight, to defend themselves, and to secure 

 their retreat by the most consummate ability in utilising 

 the natural features of their country. This was due to two 

 things. In the first place they took care to have with 

 them in each part of the country the men who knew that 

 particular district best in every detail and in every aspect. 

 But in the second place there can be no doubt that they 

 made the utmost use of that hunter-craft by which the 

 majority of them could take in at a glance the character 

 of a country, even a new one, as a whole, guided by certain 

 unconscious principles which each man absorbed as part 

 of his country life and hunter's training. They possessed, 

 and had of necessity cultivated to a very high degree, an 

 " eye for a country." 



Now the study of the geology of any district, and 

 especially the geological mapping of it, goes a long way 

 towards giving and educating the very kind of eye for a 

 country which is required, partly by reason of the practice 

 in observation and interpretation which it is continuously 

 giving, and partly because it deliberately supplies the very 

 kinds of classification and the principles of form which a 

 hunter-people have unconsciously built up from their outdoor 

 experience. 



Any geologist who thinks of the Weald, the wolds and 

 downs of Eastern England, the scarps and terraces of the 

 Pennine, the buried mountain structure of the Midlands, even 

 the complicated mountain types of Lakeland and Wales, will 

 remember how often his general knowledge of the rock- 

 structure of the region has helped him as a guide to the 

 topography ; and as his geological knowledge of the area 

 has increased he will recall how easy it has become to 

 carry the most complicated topography in his mind, or to 

 revive his recollection of it from a glance at the map, 



