370 THE RELATIONS OF GEOLOOY. 



not its own jvcological society, cnmlative of our own, whose nieniljers 

 are either engaged in aiding tiie advance of that science or profiting 

 1\V the benefits of that advance. One and all — national surveyors, 

 members of geological societies, sympathiztM's in other sciences, col- 

 lective bodies or isolated individuals — are united in a catholic free- 

 masonary by their common study of, and interest in, the rocliy 

 structure of the earth. 



I will not attempt the impossible l)}^ endeavoring to follow in 

 detail the vai'ious stages in the development of geological science, or 

 by trying to distinguish between what is due to the researches of its 

 own students, and what is due to the aids afforded them by the fellow- 

 sciences. But none among us would venture to deny the assertion 

 that no ])ranch of scientific inquiry has profited more than geology 

 from what has been termed the "consensus of the sciences." No 

 science has received more ungrudging assistance from other sciences, 

 or has repaid more fully that assistance in kind. Almost every problem 

 attacked by geology has needed the aid of some other ])ranch of 

 knowledge for its solution; almost every advance made by geology 

 has +'urthered the progress of one or more of its fellow-sciences. 



GEOLOGY AND MITs'EKALf^GY. 



The discovery of the geological formations themselves may be said 

 to have ])een essentially the outcome^ of the early association of 

 geology and mineralogy. The l)rilliant i(U'as of Werner, em])odied in 

 his so-called '"''geognos}'," in which thc'sc formatioi-uS were first identi- 

 fied by their mineral characters, and then followed over their vast 

 geographical (wtension until they were shown to stand related to the 

 whole of tcn-restrial nature and of life, had unquestionably their root 

 in mineralogy; and the geological student of the igneous formations 

 is incapal)le of his task unless he is well acquainted with the latest 

 methods and results of mineralogical science. But the idea of the 

 inevitable association of mineralogy and geology nuist not be pressed 

 too far, nor should it be allowed to give to the whole of geology that 

 dominant mineralogical color in which it is often erroneously supposed 

 to be steeped. It is impossible to overestimate the advantages which 

 have accrued to the science of geology by its association with miner- 

 alogy. But that association is an alliance and not a conquest, (leol- 

 ogy is not a province of mineralogy, but an empire in its own right, 

 and between it and that of chemistry, mineralogy is, as it were, a kind 

 of buffer kingdom having alliances with both. 



But if geology owes much to its alliance with mineralogy, mineral- 

 ogy has benefited by that alliance to quite as great an extent. Not 

 onlj^ have all the minerals their home and habitat in the rock forma- 

 tions, but the mineralogist owes to the geologist all that he knows of 

 their association and distribution. In no branch of our science has 



