Nov. 9, 1 87 1 J 



NATURE 



37 



THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL OF GEOLOGY* 



I. 



"17 OR the first time in the history of University Education in 

 Scotland, we are to-day met to begin the duties of a Chair 

 specially devoted to the cultivation of Geology and Mineralog)-. 

 Though Science is of no country nor kin, it yet bears some 

 blanches which take their hue largely from the region whence 

 they sprang, or where they have been most closely followed. 

 Such local colourings need not be deprecated, since they are both 

 inevitable and useful. They serve to bring out the peculiarities 

 of each climate, or land, or people, and it is the blending of all 

 these colourings which finally gives the common neutral tint of 

 science. This is in a marked degree true of Geology. Each 

 country where any part of the science has been more particularly 

 studietl, has given its local names to the general nomenclature, 

 and its rocks have sometimes served as types from which the 

 rocks of other regions have been classified and described. The 

 very scenery of the country, reacting on the minds of the early 

 observers, has sometimes influenced their observations, and has 

 thus left an impress on the general progress of the science. As 

 we enter to-day upon a new phase in the history of Geology 

 among us here, it seems most fitting that we should look back 

 for a little at the past development of the science in this country. 

 There was a time, still within the memoiy of living men, when a 

 handful of ardent original observers here carried geological specu- 

 lation and research to such a height as to found a new, and, in 

 the end, a dominant shool of Geology. 



In the history of the Natural Sciences, as in that of Philosophy, 

 there have been epochs of activity and then intervals of qui- 

 escence. One genius, perhaps, has arisen and kindled in other 

 minds the flame that burned so brightly in his own. A time 

 of vigorous research ensued, but as the personal influence waned, 

 there followed a period of feebleness or torpor until the advent of 

 some new awakening. Such oscillations of mental energy have 

 an importance and a significance lar beyond the narrow limits of 

 the country or city in which they may have been manifested. 

 They form part of that long and noble record of the struggle of 

 man with the forces of nature, and deserve the thoughtful con- 

 sideration of all who have joined or who contemplate joining in 

 that stniggle. I propose on the present occasion to sketch to 

 you the story of one of these periods of vigorous originality, 

 which had its rising and its setting at Edinburgh — the story of 

 what may be called the Scottish School of Geology. I wish to 

 place before you, in as clear a light as I can, the work which was 

 accomplished by the founders of that school, that you may see 

 how greatly it has influenced, and is even now influencing, the 

 onward march of the science. I do this in no vainglorious 

 spirit, nor with any wish to e.xalt into prominence a mere ques- 

 tion of nationality. Science knows no geographical or political 

 limits. Nor, though we may be proud of what has been achieved 

 for Geology in this little kingdom, can we for a moment shut 

 our eyes to the fact that these achievements are of the past, that 

 the measure of the early promise at the beginning of this century 

 has been but scantily fulfilled in Scotland, and that the state of 

 the science among us here, instead of being in advance, is rather 

 behind the time. And thus I dwell now on the example of our 

 predecessors, solely in the hope that, realising to ourselves what 

 that example really was, we may be stimulated to follow it. 

 The same hills and valleys, crags and ravines, remain around us 

 whii;h gave these great men their inspiration, and still preach to 

 us the lessons which they were the first to understand. 



The period during which the distinctively Scottish School of 

 Geology rose and flourished may be taken as included between 

 the years 17S0 and 1825 — a brief half-century. Picvious to that 

 time Geology, in the true sense of the word, can hirdly be said 

 to have existed. Steno, indeed, more than a hundred years 

 before, had shown, from the occurrence of the remains of plants 

 and animals imbedded in the solid rocks, that the present was 

 not the original order of things, that there had been upheavals 

 of the ^ea into dry land and depressions of the land beneath the 

 sea, by the working of forces lodged within the earth, and that 

 th e memorials of these changes were preserved for us in the 

 rocks. Seventy years later, another writer of the Ilalian school, 

 Lazzaro Moro, adopting and extending the conclusions of Steno, 

 pointed to the evidence that the surface of the earth is every- 

 where worn away, and is repaired by the upheaving power of 



* A Lecture delivered at the opening of the clas of Geology and Mineralogy 

 in the University of Edinburgh, by Archibald Geikie, F.R.S., Nov, 6, 1871. 



earthquakes, but for which the mountains and all the dry land 

 would at last be brought beneath the level of the waves. 



But none of these desultory researches, interesting and im- 

 portant though ihey were as landmarks in the progress of science, 

 bore immediate fruit in any broad and philosophic outline of 

 the natural history of the globe. Men were still trammelled by 

 the belief that the date and creation of the world and its inha- 

 bitanfs could not be placed further back than some five or six 

 thousand years, that this limit was fixed for us in Holy Writ, 

 and that every new fact must receive an interpretation in accord- 

 ance with such limitation. They were thus often driven to 

 distort the facts or to explain them away. If they ventured to 

 pronounce for a natural and obvious interpretation, they laid 

 themselves open to the charge of impiety and atheism, and 

 might bring down the unrelenting vengeance of the Church. 



Such was the state of inquiry when the Scottish Geological 

 School came into being. The founder of that school was James 

 Hulton — a man of a singularly original and active mind, who 

 was born at Edinburgh in 1726, and died there in 1797. Edu- 

 cated for the medical profession, but possessed of a small fortune, 

 which gave him leisure for the ]3ursuit of his favourite studies, he 

 eventually devoted himself to the study of Mineralogy. But it 

 was not merely as rare or interesting objects, nor even as parts of 

 a mineral ogical system, that he deilt with minerals. They seemed 

 to suggest to him constant cjuestions as to the earlier conditions 

 of our planet, and he was thus gradually led into the wider fields 

 of Geology and Physical Geography. Qaietly working in his 

 study here, a favourite member of a brilliant circle of society, 

 which included such men as Black, CuUen, Adam Smith, and 

 Clerk of Eldin, and making frequent excursions to gather fresh 

 data and test the truth of his deductions, he at length ma-ured 

 his immortal "Theory of the Earth," and published it in 1785. 

 Associated with Hutton, rather as a friend and enthusiastic 

 admirer than as an independent observer, was John Playfair, 

 Professor of Natural Philosophy in this University, by whose 

 graceful exposition the doctrines of Hu'ton were most widely 

 made known to the world. His classic " Illustrations of the 

 Huttonian Theory " is one of the most delightful books of science 

 in our languige — clear, elegant, and vivacious —a model of 

 scientific description and argument, which I would most earnestly 

 recommend to your notice. Sir J.amts Hall, another of this little 

 illustrious band, had one of the most inventive minds which have 

 ever taken up the pursuit of science in ihis country. His merits 

 have never yet been adequately realised by his countiymen, 

 though they are better appreciated in Germany and in Fiance. 

 He was in fact the founder cf Experimental Geology, since it 

 was he who first brought geological speculation to the test of 

 actual physical experiment. This he accomplished in a series of 

 ingenious researches, whereby he corroborated some of the dis- 

 puted parts of the doctrines of his master, Hutton. These were 

 the three chief leaders of the Scottish school ; but to their number, 

 as worthy but less celebrated associates, we must not omit to add 

 the names of Mackenzie, Webb Seymour, and Allan. 



It would lead me far beyond the allotted hour to attempt any 

 adequate summary of the work achieved by each of these early 

 pioneers of the science. It will be enough for my present pur- 

 pose if I try to sketch to you what were the leadmg character- 

 istics of this Scottish School, and what claim it has to be remem- 

 bered, not by us only, but by all to whom Geology is the subject 

 either of serious study or of pleasant recreation. 



Born in a " land of mountain and flood," the geology of the 

 Scottish School naturally dealt in the main with the inorganic 

 part of the science, with the elemental forces which have burst 

 through and cracked and worn down the crust of the earth. It 

 asked the mountains of its birthplace by what chain of events 

 they had been upheaved, how their rocks, so gnailed and broken, 

 had come into being, how valleys and glens liad been impressetl 

 upon the surface of the land, and how the vari, .i.s ^rata through 

 which these wind had been step by step built up. It encountered 

 no rocks, like those which had arrested the notice of the early 

 Italian geologists, charged with fossil shells, and corals, and 

 bones offish, such as still lived in the adjoining seas, and which 

 at once suggested the former presence of the sea over the land. 

 Neither did it meet with deposits showing abundant traces of 

 ancient lakes, and rivers, and land-surfaces, each marked by the 

 presence of animal and plant remains, like those which set Steno 

 and Moro thinking. The rocks of Scotlanu are as a whole un- 

 fossiliferous. It was, therefore, only with the records of phyjical 

 events, unaided by the testimony of organic remains, that the 

 Scottish geologists had to deal. Their task was to unravel the 



