620 GEOLOGY. 



countries. Of this work, D'Aubuisson observed, "that what many celebrated mineralogists 

 had only accomplished for a small part of Germany, during half a century, had been 

 effected by a single individual for the whole of England." Upon the importance and 

 interest of geological investigations becoming more extensively appreciated, societies were 

 organised at home and abroad for the purpose of facilitating such inquiries, whose 

 published transactions are monuments of the admirable energy and strict philosophical 

 spirit with which the object has been pursued; nor is it too much to say, that no individuals, 

 in any age of the world, have established a stronger claim to confidence than the members 

 of the Geological Society of London by their personal labours, to arrive at a just know- 

 ledge of facts. It has been the grand maxim of that institute to multiply and record 

 accurate observations, leaving theory in abeyance until sufficient materials for general- 

 isation have been gathered ; a principle which has been faithfully kept in view, and 

 which has equally distinguished the researches of the leading geologists of the Continent. 



To this department of science, many of the arts of life are indebted for their rapid 

 advance in modern times; and its cultivation may justly be regarded as one of the elements 

 of our social prosperity. An improved agriculture has resulted from the knowledge of 

 the nature of soils, and of the due admixture of those ingredients clay, flint, and lime 

 which constitute the most fertile and the least exhaustible land ; while the operations of 

 draining, and of conducting moisture to dry and friable soils, has been facilitated by an 

 acquaintance with the strata of districts, their disturbances, and lines of dislocation. The 

 civil engineer, who has to construct a railroad or a canal, geology directs in the route to 

 be pursued through those deposits which are workable at the least expense, or whose 

 masonry and mineral contents will yield the best return to the promoters of the enterprise ; 

 and, from the same source, the architect receives valuable aid in the selection of building 

 materials. Oxford and Bath furnish many examples of crumbling edifices, of which also 

 the Capitol at Washington is an instance, having been constructed of a stone that readily 

 yields to the action of the atmosphere ; and hence the British senate, in erecting new 

 Houses of Parliament, referred the selection of the material to a commission of geologists, 

 by whom one from the magnesian mountain limetone was chosen. Some of the finest 

 works of art have become disfigured or entirely ruined in the lapse of time, in consequence 

 of the ignorant selection, by the sculptor, of stone liable to chip and decompose, or 

 impregnated with the metallic oxides. But it is especially in the conduct of mining 

 operations that geology has displayed its practical utility. A knowledge of the position 

 occupied by the coal or ironstone strata, and of the rocks usually associated with them, 

 has guided the capitalist to the spot where he might engage in the search for these 

 products with the least chance of disappointment ; and had the directions of science been 

 sought in many instances, and followed, vast sums would have been saved to the community, 

 that have been expended upon a useless quest. Deceived by appearances, or misled by 

 designing individuals, coal has been sought by public companies at a great expenditure, in 

 the wealden formation of Sussex, the oolites of Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, and the 

 Silurians of Radnorshire ; whereas an attention to the simplest principles of geology would 

 have shown the folly of such schemes. Because Pennsylvania is rich in coal, it was 

 imagined in the neighbouring state of New York that the precious gift might be found 

 there also ; and the resemblance of certain silurian rocks on the banks of the Hudson river 

 to the bituminous shales of the true coal formation, appeared to sanction the surmise. 

 Accordingly mining adventurers squandered away a large amount of capital in sinking 

 shafts there, below the carboniferous series, until geology, at the invitation of the 

 legislature, authoritatively declared the futility of such attempts. 



Besides its economical value, geological science possesses a thrilling dramatic interest, 

 which invests it with peculiar fascinations. It unfolds the successive conditions of the 



