366 RAMBLES OF A NATUKALIST. 



was enabled, by combining the results of his own studies 

 with the researches made by Humboldt and Leopold 

 von Buch, to transform the vague idea of an upheaval 

 of mountains into a complete doctrine, which has given a 

 rapid impetus to the progress of geology, and enabled us to 

 trace the past history of our globe with a precision that 

 amounts almost to mathematical accuracy. By means of 

 this doctrine we have been enabled to ascertain the rela- 

 tive age of mountain chains and other districts, and to 

 determine their formation, to recognise the modifications 

 which each new cataclysm has effected in the form of 

 seas and continents, and finally to prepare geographical 

 charts corresponding to epochs which very probably 



four he published his first work, which, although it was only a short 

 treatise of a few pages, on the classification of minerals, began a new 

 era in the history of mineralogy, because it was the first attempt to 

 reduce this science to a methodical system. Having been appointed 

 almost immediately afterwards assistant, and subsequently full 

 professor, at Freyburg, Werner, by the celebrity of his teaching, 

 attracted around him a numerous band of pupils, and it is by them 

 more especially that his doctrines have been promulgated, for their 

 master exhibited a repugnance to the manual act of writing that 

 amounted almost to mania. He would not even open the letters 

 which were addressed to him, for fear of being obliged to answer 

 them, and hence, in addition to the treatise of which we have already 

 spoken, he has left only two other works, which in like manner con- 

 sist of merely a few pages each, viz. A Classification and Description 

 of Mountains and A new Theory of the Formation of Metalliferous 

 Veins. Werner had more particularly occasion to notice sedimentary 

 rocks, and hence he was led to ascribe a very exaggerated influence 

 to water in the formation of the earth's crust. Thus, for instance, 

 he assigned an aqueous origin even to basalt, and he therefore 

 justly merited to be regarded as the chief of the Neptunian school. 

 This celebrated mineralogist was passionately attached to his native 

 country, and it is asserted that the misfortunes experienced by 

 Saxony in 1812, caused him so much grief as to accelerate the 

 progress of the disease from which he died. 



