PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 5 



Lewis, in his interesting work on the ' Astronomy of 

 the Ancients,' has done justice to their labours. 

 Even, however, if we determine to ignore all these 

 early periods, if Pythagoras and Ptolemy groped and 

 blundered amidst confusion and error, and if we date 

 the birth of true Astronomy from the days of Coper- 

 nicus and Galileo, Kepler and Newton, it still has a 

 priority in date of well nigh 400 years over its sister 

 Geology, which cannot be said to have existed before 

 the very end of the last and the commencement of 

 the present century. 



Another difference between the two sciences arises 

 from the periods to which they refer. Geology is 

 essentially a retrospective science ; it never looks 

 forward, it invites us to cast our regards behind us, 

 and. to endeavour through the obscurity of the past 

 to trace out the former conditions of the earth's sur- 

 face ; its pages are all written in the praeterpluper- 

 fect tense ; just as some wizard or necromancer in 

 the legends of the middle ages evoked by his potent 

 spells the spirits of departed mailed knights, beau- 

 teous dames, or crowned monarchs, so the modern 

 geologist calls out from their stony tombs the gaunt 

 skeletons of Ichthyosauri, Pterodactyls, Mastodons, 

 and Megatheriums, to astonish us with these relics of 



