President's Address. 193 



who can estimate the present extent of authorship, not onl}' 

 over the wide range of general science, but over the still wider 

 area of art and the economic history of the world. 



Period 1777 to 1827. — It would be interesting as well as 

 profitable could we contrast the number and quality of the 

 works on science published a hundred years ago with those of 

 the present age, but the materials for decision are scanty, and 

 only warrant a very limited judgment. 



The great leading reviews, the Edinhurgh and Quarterly 

 notably, which gave such an impulse to learning, were not in 

 existence at the first-mentioned period, and so we are left to 

 turn for information to the volumes of the Annual Register and 

 the magazines of the day, to glean what we can on the sub- 

 ject, and we, indeed, can gather but very little grain to reward 

 our research. A few names of authors stand out boldly like 

 giants among pigmies. As a rule tlie minor authors were 

 heavy, unimpressive, and dull, abounding in generalities, and 

 wanting in that breadth and incisiveness which characterise 

 most works of later years. 



In 1777 the text-books of what is now termed the science 

 of biology were the works of Linnaeus and Bufibn. Cuvier 

 forty years later gave to the world his " Eegne Animal," which 

 superseded Buffon, and which, to a certain extent, is stiU an 

 authority. Later still, in 1825, Cuvier published his work, 

 " Ossemens Fossiles," the introductory essay to which work, 

 under the title of " Discours sur les Eevolutions de la Surface 

 du Globe," was translated by the late Professor Jamieson of 

 Edinburgh, under the title of " Theory of the Earth." In this 

 " we have the grand outline given of a history of the earth, 

 and, with a few modifications, it is that which is held by the 

 most distinguished geologists of the present day. To Cuvier, 

 says a writer, is due the credit of having brought together the 

 scattered facts of mineralogy, chemistry, botany, and zoology, 

 in such a manner as to make them tell the history of the 

 world." Before this, however (1795), our own illustrious 

 countryman, Dr Hutton, published his celebrated work, the 

 "Theory of the Earth." His object was to show that the 

 great number of the phenomena, which, by Werner, were 

 supposed to be produced by the action of water, were, on the 



