14 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



down. Little, indeed, could be said till we come to 1778, 

 when the minister of Moffat, the Eev. Dr Walker, was ap- 

 pointed as the first professor of Natural History in the Edin- 

 burgh University, and almost nothing of true progress after 

 Walker's death, till the publication of "The British Ani- 

 mals," 1828, by Professor Fleming, my predecessor in the 

 New College Chair of Natural Science. 



When, after the last meeting of Council, I began the pre- 

 paration of this Address, it was my intention to sketch the 

 early history of Scottish Geology in the same way of running 

 narrative and surface remark as that of Zoology ; but I soon 

 saw that neither my time nor your patience were likely to 

 admit of this. May I recommend the subject to our young 

 geologists ? The field is full of interest, and will substan- 

 tially reward a painstaking, thorough survey. The starting 

 point, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, prepares us 

 for the work of the Scottish alchemists, soon to follow. We 

 get a glimpse not only of the foundation of chemistry, but even 

 of those of mineralogical and stratigraphical geology ; because, 

 with all the prevalent empiricism and false method and crude 

 hypothesis of the times, there is associated the record of ob- 

 servations permanently valuable, and, as such, true steps in 

 the history of science — steps connected with great names — as 

 Michael Scott, thirteenth century; James IV., 1488-1513; 

 Sir George Erskine of Invertiel ; John Napier of Merchiston, 

 the inventor of Logarithms ; Sir David Lindsay, first Earl of 

 Balcarres; Patrick Euthven, Alexander Seton, and Patrick 

 Scott, — men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One 

 can almost forget the greedy hunt of these old workers after 

 the " Lapis Bivinus," and the " Quinta Essentia" when we see 

 how near they often were to Baconian method, and with what 

 loving longings they waited at the doors of true knowledge — 

 method and knowledge which we could not have reached, 

 except by being warned by their blunders, and helped even 

 by their small attainments. He is a poor student who de- 

 spises and kicks away the ladder on whose rungs he has 

 mounted to success. The generation which despises the past 

 will not do much for the future. In such a survey, more- 

 over, one meets with much to let sunshine in on studies, 



