Dec.^, 1 873 J 



NA TURE 



91 



tion of cause and effect. And yet it is only in proportion 

 as one is enabled to master this subject that he is pre- 

 pared to understand, far less to discuss the origin of the 

 present contours of the land. 



In the volume which the Duke of Argyll has singled 

 out to bear the brunt of his attack, I carefully stated at 

 the commencement that I proposed to consider the prob- 

 lem only " in so far as it relates to the history of the 

 scenery of Scotland." I laid down no universal law or 

 dogma by which the hills and valleys of every other part 

 of the world were to be explained. I knew the mountains 

 and glens of -Scotland ; I had wandered over them and 

 studied them from boyhood ; trained in the severe and 

 laborious school of the Geological Survey, I had mapped 

 many hundreds of square miles of their surface, across 

 some of the most complicated pieces of geological struc- 

 ture in the kingdom. It was not, therefore, in any spirit 

 of rashness, or novelty, or dogmatism, but with the grow- 

 ing convictions of many years of experience and in the 

 belief that a service to the cause of geological inquiry in 

 this country could be done, that 1 ventured to launch my 

 little book upon the world. I was well aware that other 

 regions exhibited features not seen here, and that for these 

 other explanations might require to be found. But it was 

 then no part of my subject to travel beyond my own 

 domain. When the principles for which, in common with 

 my able colleagues in the Survey, I contended were firaily 

 established in relation to the scenery of this country, it 

 would then be time to consider how far they were applic- 

 able elsewhere. That they would be found to be not 

 merely of local but of wide general import I then held to 

 be probable, and I now know to be profoundly true. 



One m.ain object of my chapters was to show how the 

 present hills and valleys of Scotland had come into ex- 

 istence gradually, one by one, during an enormously pro- 

 tracted period of geological waste in the manner to which 

 I have already referred this evening. I adduced copious 

 proofs from all parts of the kingdom in support of this 

 view, similar proofs having been already triumphantly ac- 

 cumulated by Mr. Jukes in Ireland, and by Prof. Ramsay 

 and others in England. 



Far from ignoring the influence of geological structure 

 upon external form, I might even have been charged with 

 having brought forward a needlessly ample accumulation 

 of evidence to show how constantly the resulting contours 

 of the country have been determined by the arrangement 

 of the rocks. I showed how ancient, in a geological 

 sense, the denudation of the country had been, and how 

 thoroughly it had done its work upon the surface, no 

 matter whether the rorks had been originally formed as 

 mere soft mud or had been once in actual fusion. I dwelt 

 on the remarkable lact that as a rule the valleys do not run 

 along lines of fracture, and quoted in support of this 

 assertion the published maps of the Geological Survey 

 of the three kingdoms. To these and similar statements 

 of sober fact which are now part of the common stock of 

 geological knowledge, his Grace opposes such phrases as 

 these : ''The factf assumed are, in my opinion, to a large 

 extent purely hypothetical," "This assertion is erroneous," 

 " extravagant demands," " inventions and imaginations," 

 and so on. 



( To be continued^ 



NOTES 

 The annual meeting of the Fellows of the Royal Society was 

 held on Tuesdayat Burlington House. The retiring President, 

 Sir George Biddell Airy, K.C.B., delivered the inaugural ad- 

 dress. The presentation of the nit dais followed. The Copley 

 Medal was awarded to Professor Helmholtz, the distinguished 

 physiologist, physicist, and mathcmalician, of Berlin, "whose 

 memuirs have ranged through nervous physiology, hydro- 

 dynamical theory, instruments (as the ophthalmometer and the 



ophthalmoscope) for exact measurement and for medical exami- 

 nation of the eye, and other important subjects, and have been 

 generally recognised as giving real additions to our knowledge." 

 A Royal Medal was awarded to Prof AUraan, F.R.S., "for his 

 numerous zoological investigations, and more especially for his 

 work upon the Tubularian Hydroids. The subject of these 

 labours is one upon which few persons are qualified to enter ; 

 and the Council are impressed with the delicacy of the work and 

 the value of the scientific results." A Royal ratdal was awardep 

 to Professor H. E. Roscoe, F.R.S., of Owens College, Man- 

 cheiter, " for his various Chemical Reseirches, more especially 

 for his investigations of the Chemical Action of Light, and of 

 the Combinations of Vanadium." Dr. Joseph Dalton Hooker, 

 C.B , was elected President of the Society. 



TiiE alleged reply of the Government on the subject of an 

 Arctic Expedition as reported in the daily papers {Daily 

 Tcle'^raph and Pall Mall Gazelle) is calculated to convey a very 

 erroneous impression. Mr. Gladstone has requested that he 

 may be furnished, in writing, with the reasons for the despatch 

 of an Arctic Expedition, before receiving a deputation on the 

 subject. Those reasons, which we believe to be quite con- 

 clusive as showing the propriety of despatching an expedition 

 next year, will at once be furnished to the Prime Minister. 



Prof. A. W. Williamson has been elected a Correspondent 

 of the French Academy. 



The Duke of Northumberland has been unanimously elected 

 President of the Royal Institution, in succession to the late Sir 

 Henry Holland. 



The probable arrangements for the Friday Evening Meetings 

 of the Royal Institution before Easter 1874, are as follows : — 

 Jan. 16 ; The Acoustic Transparency and Opacity of the Atmo- 

 sphere, by Prof. Tyndall, F.R.S. Jan. 23 : Recent Discoveries 

 in Mechanical Conversion of Motion, by Prof. Sylvester, F. R. .S. 

 Jan. 30 : Weber and his Times, by Sir Julius Benedict. Feb. 6: 

 The Heart and the Sphygmograph, by Alfred II. Garrod, Fel- 

 low of St. John's College, Cambridge. Feb. 13 : The Oppo- 

 nents of Shakespeare, by Dr. Doran, F.S.A. Feb. 20 : The 

 Autotype and other Photographic Processes and Discoveries, by 

 Vernon Heath. Feb. 27 : Men of Science, their Nature and 

 Nurture, by Francis Galton, F.R.S. March 6 : Venus's Fly-trap, 

 by Dr. J. S. Buidon-Sanderson, F.R.S. March 13 : Graphic 

 Representations of Musical Sounds, by M. Cornu. March 20 : 

 The Temperature of the Atlantic, by Dr. W. B. Carpenter, 

 F.R.S., Registrar Univ. Lond. March 27: The Physical His- 

 tory of the Rhine, by Prof. A. C. Ramsay, F.R.S., Director of 

 the Geological Survey of Great Britain. 



Sir Samuel Baker has quite recovered from his recent in- 

 disposition, and will on Monday next address the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society upon his adventures in Africa. 



We regret to announce the death of M. De La Rive at Mar- 

 seilles on Nov. 27, on his way to Cannes. Hehad had an 

 apoplectic fit abo at a fortnight previously, from which he seemed 

 to be slowly recovering, though greatly shattered in intellect. 



We rejoice to learn that at a convocation held at Oxford 

 on November 27, the grant alluded to in Nature a fort- 

 night ago in connection with Dr. De La Rue's gift of astro- 

 nomical apparatus to the University, was acceded to in a 

 manner creditable and gratifying to all concerned. Thus the 

 University has, we believe, established the foundation of 

 what ought to become a very useful Observatory for A - 

 tronomical Physics One immediate result, we hope, will 

 be to excite Cambiidge into vigorous action. Oxford de- 

 serves great credit for the efforts she has made during the 



