INTRODUCTION. 145 



latter made it their chief desire to keep strictly to an account 

 of known geological facts, Breislak throughout his work 

 concerned himself mainly about the causes of geological 

 phenomena. And the reactionary influence of Breislak's work 

 proved so far healthful ; but chemistry and physics were still 

 too little advanced to permit of an adequate solution of most 

 geological phenomena, and ingenious as Breislak's conceptions 

 were, they were seldom correct, and led him often far astray. 

 The best part of the work is the third volume, in which 

 Breislak gives a good account of volcanic phenomena and 

 volcanic rocks in Italy, and contributes a number of valuable 

 observations on gaseous explosions, volcanic ejecta, and on 

 lava and basalt. 



FOURTH PERIOD NEWER DEVELOPMENT OF GEOLOGY 

 AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 



The leaders of thought, whose activities towards the close of 

 the eighteenth, and in the first twenty years of the nineteenth 

 century, won for geology an acknowledged place as a scientific 

 study, were almost all of them men of independent means. 

 Only a limited number of the founders of geology and 

 palaeontology belonged to teaching bodies. The universities 

 were unwilling to countenance young and indefinite sciences, 

 and only tardily incorporated them in their academical 

 curricula. But when one after another of the universities 

 recognised geology and palaeontology, the result could only be 

 beneficial, and that rapid progress began which has continued 

 uninterruptedly to the present day. 



Collections of rocks and fossils were started in all 

 university towns, and laboiatories and institutes were founded 

 and equipped in order that beginners in the study might have 

 every assistance in their work, and that the more advanced 

 students might be given every inducement to follow out 

 selected lines of original research. The number of students 

 steadily increased, the output of special papers became more 

 voluminous, and every year the subject-matter of the collegiate 

 course became more comprehensive. 



At first the universities, more especially in Germany, where 

 Werner's system was the supreme precedent, placed the newer 

 branches of geology and palaeontology under the care of the 



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