54 



NA TURE 



{Nov. 1 6, 1 87 1 



I have spoken of this Scottish School as marking a ]3eriod of 

 activity which rose into brightness and then waned. It is only 

 too true, "that so far as the originality and influence of its culti- 

 vators go, Geology has never since held in Scotland the place 

 which it held here at the beginning of the century. Its decay is 

 perhaps to be ascribed chiefly, if not entirely, to the introduction 

 of the doctrines of Werner from Germany. The Huttonians had 

 dealt rather with general principles than with minute details ; 

 they were weak in accurate mineralogical knowledge — not that 

 they were ignorant of or in any degree despised such knowledge ; 

 bat it was not necessary for their object. When, however, the 

 system of Werner came to be taught within these walls by his 

 enthusiastic pupil Jameson, its precision and simplicity, and its 

 supposed capability of ready application in every country, joined 

 to the skill and zeal of its teacher, gave it an impulse which 

 lasted for years. I shall have occasion in a subsequent lecture 

 to speak of this system. It is ejiough for the present to describe 

 it as a crude and artificial attempt to explain the geological his- 

 tory of the globe from the rocks of a district in Saxony. It re- 

 quired mineralogical determination of rocks, and in so far it did 

 good service, but its theoretical teaching in matters of geology 

 cannot now be regarded without a smile. It maintained that the 

 globe was covered with certain universal formations, and that 

 these had been precipitated successively from solution in a pri- 

 meval ocean. Of upheaval and subsidence, earthquakes and 

 volcanos, and all the mechanism of internal heat, it could make 

 nothing, and ignored as much as it dared. Werner, the founder 

 of this system, had the faculty of attaching his students to him, 

 and of infusing into them no small share of his own zeal and 

 faith in his doctrines. His pupil Jameson had a similar aptitude. 

 Skilled in the mineralogy of his time, and full of desire to apply 

 the teachings of I'reyberg to the explication of Scottish geology 

 or geognosy, as he preferred to call it, he gathered round him a 

 band of active observers, who gleaned facts from all parts of 

 Scotland, and to wliom the first accurate descriptions of the 

 mineralogy of the counti-y are due. It is but fitting that a tri- 

 bute of gratitude should on the present occasion be offered to 

 the memory of Jameson for the lifedong devotion with which he 

 taught Natural History, and especially Mineralogy, in this Uni- 

 versity. His influence is to be judged not by what he wrote, 

 but by the effect of his example, and by the number of ardent 

 naturalists who came from his teaching. He founded a scientific 

 Society here, and called it Wernerian, after his chief — a Society 

 which under his guidance did excellent service to the cause of 

 science in Scotland. And yet in the course of my scientific 

 reading I have never met a sadder contrast than to turn from the 

 earlier volumes of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, containing 

 the classic essays of Ilutton, Hall, and Playfair — essays which 

 made an epoch in the liistory of Geology — to the pages of the 

 Wernerian memoirs, and find grave discussions about the universal 

 formations, tlie aqueous origin of basalt, and the chemical depo- 

 sition of such rocks as slate and conglomerate ! 



Between the followers of Ilutton and Werner there necessarily 

 arose a keen warfare. The one battalion of combatants was 

 styled by its opponents " Vulcanists " or " Plutonists," as if 

 they recognised only the power of internal fire, while the other 

 was in turn nicknamed " Neptunists," in token of their adherence 

 to water. The warfare lasted in a desultory way for many years, 

 and though the Wernerian school, having essentially no vitality, 

 eventually died out, and its leader Jameson publicly and frankly 

 recanted his errors, the early Huttonian magnates had one by 

 one departed and left no successors. The Huttonian school 

 triumphed indeed, but its triumph was seen rather in other 

 countries than in Scotland. Here the Wernerian school attracted 

 in great measure the younger men who gathered round Jameson, 

 and when its influence waned there were no great names on tlie 

 other side to rally the thinned and weakened ranks of Hut- 

 tonianism. Hence came a period of comparative quiescence, 

 which has lasted almost down to our own day. From time to time, 

 indeed, a geologist has arisen among us to show that the science 

 was not dead, and that the doctrines of Hutton had borne good 

 Iruit. But Geology has never since held such a prominent place 

 amongst us, nor have the writings of geologists in Scotland taken 

 the same position in the literature of the science. The great 

 name of Lyell, and others of lesser note, have earned elsewhere 

 their title to fame. 



But there is one name which must be in our hearts and on our 

 lips to-day, that of Roderick Impey Murchison. To his muni- 

 ficence, and the liberality of the Crown, we owe the foundation 

 of this Chair of Geology, and to his warm friendship I am in- 

 debted for the position in which I stand before you. Of his 



achievements in science, and of the influence of his work all over 

 the world, it is not necessary now to speak. But on Scottish 

 Geology no man has left his name more deeply engraven. It 

 was he who, along with Prof Sedgwick, first made known tlie 

 order of succession of the Old Red sandstone of the north of 

 .Scotland ; it was he who sketched for us the relations of the 

 great Silurian masses of the Southern uplands ; and it was he 

 who, by a series of admirable researches, brought order out of 

 the chaos of the so-called Primary rocks of the Highlands, and 

 placed tliese rocks in a parallel with the Silurian strata of other 

 countries. These labours will come again before us in detail, 

 and you will then l>etter understand their value, and the debt we 

 owe to the man who accomplished them. 



Sir Roderick Murchison looked forward with interest to the 

 occasion which has called us together to-day. Only a few weeks 

 ago I talked with him regarding it, and his eye brightened as I 

 told him of the subject on which I proposed to speak to you. I 

 had hoped that he would have lived to see this day, and to hear 

 at least of the beginning of the work which he has inaugurated 

 for us in this University. But this was not to be. He has been 

 taken from us ripe in years, in work, and in honours, and he 

 leaves us the example of his unwearied industiy, his admirable 

 powers of observation, and his rare goodness of heart. 



In the course of study now before us, we are to be engaged 

 in examining together the structure and history of the earth. We 

 shall trace the working of the various natural agents which are 

 no»v carrying on geological change, and by which the past changes 

 of the globe have been effected. In so doing we shall be brought 

 continually face to face with the history of life as recorded in 

 the rocks — for it is by that history mainly that the sequences of 

 geological time can be established. We shall thus have to 

 trespass a little on what is the proper domain of the professors 

 of botany and of natural history. But you will find that no hard 

 line can be drawn between the sciences. Each must needs over- 

 lap upon the other ; and indeed it is in this mutual interlacing 

 that one great element of the strength and interest of science 

 lies. I'rom Profs. Balfour and WyviUe Thomson you will learn 

 the structure and the relation borne to living plants and animals 

 by the fossils with which we shall have to deal as our geological 

 alpliabet. By Prof. Crum Brown you are taught the full meaning 

 and application of the chemical laws under which tlie minerals 

 and rocks, which we in this class must study, have been formed, 

 and of the processes concerned in those subsequent changes, both 

 of rocks and minerals, which are of such paramount importance 

 in Geology. 



And now, in conclusion, permit me to give expression to the 

 feelings which must strongly possess the mind of one who is 

 called upon to fill the first Chair dedicated in Scotland to the 

 cultivation of Geology. When I look back to the times of that 

 illustrious group of men — Hutton, Hall, Playfair — who made 

 Edinburgh the special home of Geology ; of Boue and MaccuUoch, 

 who gave to .Scottish rocks and mountains an European celebrity ; 

 of Jameson and Edward Forbes, who did so much to stimulate 

 the study of Geology and Mineralogy in this University ; and to 

 the memory of Hugh iMiller and Charles Maclaren, who fostered 

 the love of the sciences throughout the community here, and to 

 whose kindly friendship and guidance, given to me in my boy- 

 hood, I would fain express my hearty gratitude — when I cast my 

 thoughts back upon these recollections, it would be affectation to 

 conceal the anxiety with which the prospect fills me. The 

 memory of these great names arises continually before me, bear- 

 ing with it a consciousness of the responsibility under which I 

 lie to labour earnestly not to be unworthy of the traditions of the 

 past. And, gentlemen, I feel deeply my responsibility to you 

 who are to enter with nie upon a yet untrodden jjath of the 

 Academic curriculum. It is only experience that will show us 

 how we shall best travel over the wide field before us. In the 

 meantime I must bespeak your kindly forbearance. While I 

 shall cheerfully teach you all I know, and confess what I do not 

 know, I would fain have you in the end to regard me rather in 

 the light of a fellow-student, searching with you after truth, than 

 of a teacher putting before you what is already known. We 

 have now an opportunity of combined and sedulous work which 

 has not hitherto been obtainable in .Scotland. We may not rival 

 a Hutton or a Hall ; but we may at least try to raise again the 

 standard of geological inquiry here. On every side of us are 

 incentives to study. Crag and hill rise around us, eacli eloquent 

 of ancient revolutions, and each a silent witness of the revolution 

 in progress now. At our very gates tower on one side the pic- 

 turesque memorials of long silent volcanoes, with their crumbling 

 lavas and ashes. On the other lie the buried vegetation of an 



