IX GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY 273 



Society seems to be an occasion well suited for an 

 undertaking of this kind for an inquiry, in fact, 

 into the nature and value of the present results 

 of palseontological investigation ; and the more 

 so, as all those who have paid close attention to 

 the late multitudinous discussions in which 

 palaeontology is implicated, must have felt the 

 urgent necessity of some such scrutiny. 



First in order, as the most definite and unques- 

 tionable of all the results of paleontology, must 

 be mentioned the immense extension and impulse 

 given to botany, zoology, and comparative an- 

 atomy, by the investigation of fossil remains. 

 Indeed, the mass of biological facts has been so 

 greatly increased, and the range of biological 

 speculation has been so vastly widened, by the 

 researches of the geologist and paleontologist, 

 that it is to be feared there are naturalists in 

 existence who look upon geology as Brindley 

 regarded rivers. " Rivers," said the great engineer 1 , 

 " were made to feed canals ; " and geology, some 

 seem to think, was solely created to advance com- 

 parative anatomy. 



Were such a thought justifiable, it could 

 hardly expect to be received with favour by this 

 assembly. But it is not justifiable. Your favourite 

 science has her own great aims independent of all 

 others ; and if, notwithstanding her steady devotion 

 to her own progress, she can scatter such rich 

 alms among her sisters, it should be remembered 



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