52 8 GEOLOGICAL RESEARCH. 



The two methods may eventually be united, but it can only be by 

 discovering the physical conditions which limited, determined, and 

 changed the mineral characters of the strata, and changed the dis- 

 tribution of fauna and flora in the area which the strata occupy. 1 



CONCLUSION. 



There is but one safe road in geology, and that is practical 

 familiarity with facts. If we have succeeded in our elementary task 

 of unfolding the origin of strata, and stating the ways in which their 

 origin is bound up with the origin of igneous rocks and the succession 

 of life on the earth, we shall have failed altogether in our purpose if 

 the reader has not step by step tested both exposition and theory by 

 familiar acquaintance with Nature. Thus practical knowledge is 

 readily gained as it is needed ; and facts and ideas easily become the 

 student's own when seen or interpreted by himself. There can now 

 remain no need to indicate lines of further work to be followed, for 

 the student's chief needs henceforth are hammer, handbag, and note- 

 book in connection with the subject of this volume. 



We may, however, mention a few authors of the earlier period of 

 Geological Research, whose every work may be profitably read, for 

 they may long influence the future development of geological science. 

 In physical geology there has been no greater master of description 

 than John Macculloch ; and Sir Henry de la Beche, W. D. Conybeare, 

 and Adam Sedwick, knew better what to observe than most men. In 

 volcanic geology, every writing of George Poulett Scrope is worthy of 

 study ; and in the philosophy of igneous rocks, Henry Clifton Sorby is 

 the pioneer of the modern methods of research. Robert Alfred Cloyne 

 Godwin-Austen laid the foundation of philosophical work among the 

 strata; and Ed ward Forbes has been the greatest teacher in palaeontology. 

 It is by familiarity with the whole life-work of such men as these, 

 their associates, colleagues, pupils, and successors, that the student may 

 hope to assimilate the methods of thought which they used so well, 

 and aid in advancing the science. The days of apprenticeship in science 

 have ended, but it is still possible to study carefully every writing 

 of the Great Masters in the country which they have made classical. 



No study will be more profitable than the examination of a classical 

 district with the original exposition of its geological structure ; or the 

 study of a type of life with a description in which matured experience 

 guides the use of facts which elucidate the fossil form. When the clift- 

 sections have been examined, and drawn, and measured, and the student 

 returns from disentangling complicated inversion of mountain ranges, 

 he turns from Nature to books, books of detail in which other observers 

 record their impressions of similar phenomena, in countries which may 

 be compared with the area of his studies. The "Journal of the Geo- 

 logical Society of London," the " Geological Magazine," and publica- 

 tions of the Geological Survey contain the more important contributions 

 to British Geology which are made from year to year, but even more 

 1 Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist., Dec. 1867. 



