DEFINITION AND ORIGIN OF THE SCIENCE. 3 



source of its fires, their origin and decay. And the phenomena con- 

 nected with eruptions, which fatally stimulated the curiosity of the 

 elder Pliny, have trained up in modern times philosophic men like 

 Steno 1 and Lazzaro Moro, 2 Sartorius von Waltershausen, 3 Palmieri, 4 

 Abich, 5 Robert Mallet, 6 who not only perceived succession of time 

 in the deposition of the strata, but great physical changes displace- 

 ments of land and sea affecting large areas of country. It is in this 

 school that we find the germs of our modern theories of elevation and 

 depression of land, whether by the sudden violence of volcanic heat, 

 or gradual effort depending on a general change of dimensions due to 

 temperature of the globe this being the Leibnitzian theory. 7 



2. Agriculture. The early advancement of agriculture in a country 

 so populous, and of so diversified an aspect as England, necessarily 

 produced a very intimate knowledge of different soils ; and as these 

 depend on the nature of the structure and composition of the under- 

 lying rocks which range through the country in regular courses, it is 

 not surprising that maps of the soil should have been early proposed 

 and prepared by agriculturists. Dr. Lister, residing in Yorkshire, 

 where the limits of soil are very well defined, was the first to propose 

 to the Royal Society, in 1683, a map of the soils of England. 



3. Mining. Miners in every period must have been generally 

 acquainted with the order of succession of the rocks through which 

 they seek for coal and other minerals; and in tracts consisting of 

 alternating coal-seams, limestones, sandstones, and shales, the range 

 and extent of the different strata must always have been familiar to 

 the workmen, although perhaps in an empirical manner. 



There must, therefore, always have been a MINERALOGICAL SCHOOL 

 OF GEOLOGY in every country in which rich subterranean treasures 

 attracted the attention of mankind. 



Agricola embodied the floating information of the miners of Saxony 

 as early as 1546 (De Naturd Fossilium} ; he was followed by Cordas, 

 Gesner, Kentmann, Fabricius, Encelius, " not unworthy of praise," as 

 we are told by Baier (Oryctograpliia Norica, 1708). Sweden, equally 

 celebrated for its mines, produced, between 1730 and 1762, five com- 

 plete systems of mineralogy, including the methods of Linnaeus, 

 "Wallerius, Swab, and Cronstedt. 



In 1750 Tylas, a Swede, and in 1756 Lehmann, a German, broke 

 through the fetters of a mere mineralogical method, and by proving a 

 regular order of superposition among stratified rocks, opened the way 

 for the sagacious generalisations of "Werner, and the cautious inductions 

 of Saussure. 



Werner. A peculiar set of opinions concerning the formation of 

 the earth has been honoured by the title of the Wernerian theory ; 

 and the pupils of Werner, who had found proof of the truth of his 



1 De Solido Intra Solidum, &c., 1669. 2 De Crostacei, &c., 1740. 



3 Atlas de ^Etna, 1845-61. 4 On Vesuvius. 



5 Vues Illustratives de Phe"nomenes Geologiques Observes, &c, 1837. 



6 Earthquake Catalogue, 1858; Ueber Vulkanische Kraft, 1875. 



7 Protogsea, &c., 1680. 



