THE KELATIONS OF GEOLOGY. 389 



the map-issuing- departments of the Government. Once the people 

 become accustomed by means of their school teaching-, and Iw constant 

 sight of these maps in the post-offices to regard them as a factor in 

 their daily life, that which is now a luxury for the learned and the 

 few will become more or less a necessity for the general and the many, 

 and they will demand for themselves and their children a more inti- 

 mate acquaintance with that earth know^ledge of which these maps are 

 a symbol — a consummation in which the science of geology will benefit 

 by no means last and by no means least. 



CONCLUSION. 



But to what extent instruction in that earth knowledge of which 

 geology is thesoui and center will constitute an integral portion of the 

 general education during the present century must depend iti part on 

 the efforts of geologists and in part on the enlightenment and emanci- 

 pation of the educationalists themselves. As geologists, however, wc 

 have the assurance, justified ])y unbroken tradition, that our views 

 will eventuallv l)e accepted simply l)ecause they are inevital)le. 



In the direction of practice also we may look forw^ard with (Mjual 

 contidence, especially to the spread of geological facts and principles 

 and to the extension of the applications of our science. The enormous 

 increase in the utilization of the mineral resources of our country 

 which is now going on, and the rapid opening up of the many mineral 

 districts throughout the world-wide possessions of the Empire, bring 

 da}' by day a larger array of students to our science from I he side of 

 economics. 



And turning- to the side of research we are all of us aware that some 

 of the grandest and most difficult problems of our science still await 

 solution — problems as attractive, as stinudating, and as rich in prom- 

 ise as were any of those of the past. And if that past be a true index 

 of the future we may be well satisfied that there is no science which 

 need outstrip ours in its rate of progress. When we call to luind that at 

 the couunencement of the great French Revolution, whose echoes have 

 as yet hardly died away, our science was just struggling into exist- 

 ence, and that in the short time which has since elapsed it has placed 

 itself abreast of the foremost, we have every incentive to push for- 

 ward and to emulate those great pioneers in the science, in the mighty 

 sum of whose conquests we rejoice and take a pardonable pi-ide. 



We have indeed abundant cause for pride, yet none for vainglory. 

 No science, it is true, has made so swift an advance as geology, but 

 certainly to none has ever been afforded so magniHcent an opportunity. 

 The veil of ignorance and of traditional opinion which hid from the men 

 of the Middle Ages the wondcis which geology has since repealed was 

 so dark and opacuie tliat until the close of the eighte(>nth century no 



