PREFACE. Vll 



vantages, deny the importance of Geology, 

 certainly one of the foundations of agricul- 

 ture, and which enables us to search out 

 materials for numberless important economi- 

 cal purposes ? 



Geology took its rise in the Academy of 

 Freyberg, with the illustrious WERNER, to 

 whom we owe its present interesting condition. 

 This being the case, we ought not, (as is at 

 present too much the practice), amidst the 

 numerous discoveries in the mineral king- 

 dom which have been made since the system 

 of investigation of that great interpreter of 

 nature was made known, forget the master, 

 and arrogate all to ourselves. In this Island, 

 Geology first took firm root in the north : 

 in Edinburgh the Wernerian geognostical 

 views and method of investigation, combined 

 with the theory of HUTTON, the experiments 

 and speculations of HALL, the illustrations 

 of PLAYFAIR, and the labours of the Royal 

 and Wernerian Natural History Societies, ex- 



