789 
Srction C.—GEOLOGY. 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION—Professor A. H. Green, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S, 
THURSDAY, SHPTEMBER 4. 
The PRresIDENT delivered the following Address :— 
The truth must be told; and this obliges me to confess that my contributions 
to our stock of geological knowledge, never very numerous, have of late years been 
conspicuously few, and soI have nothing to bring before the Geological Section 
that can lay any claim to be the result of original research. 
In fact, nearly all my time during the last fifteen years has been taken up in 
teaching. This had led me to think a good dea] about the value of geology as an 
educational instrument, and how its study compares with that of other branches of 
learning in its capability of giving sinew and fibre to the mind, and I have to ask 
you to listen to an exposition of the notions that have for a long time been taking 
shape bit by bit in my mind on this subject. 
I am not going to enter into the question, handled repeatedly and by this time 
pretty well thrashed out, of the relative value of natural science, literature, and 
mathematics as a means of educational discipline ; for no one who is lucky enough 
to know a little of all three, will deny that each has an importance of its own and 
its own special place in a full and perfect curriculum. The question which is the 
most valuable of the three I decline to entertain, on the broad general ground that 
* comparisons are odorous,’ and for the special reason that the answer must depend 
on the constitution of the mind that is to be disciplined. I might quite as reason- 
ably attempt to lay down that a certain diet which suits my constitution and mode 
of life, must agree equally well with all that hear me. 
I need scarcely say that nothing would induce me, if it could possibly be helped, 
to say one word that might tend to disparage the pursuit to which we are all so 
deeply attached. But I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that, when geology is to 
be used as a means of education, there are certain attendant risks that need to be 
carefully and watchfully guarded against. 
Geologists, and I do not pretend myself to be any better than the rest of them, 
are in danger continually of becoming loose reasoners. I have often had occasion 
to feel this, and I recall a scene which brought it home to me most forcibly. At 
a gathering, where several of our best English geologists were present, the question 
of the cause of changes of climate was under discussion. The explanation which found 
most favour was a change of the position of the axis of rotation within the earth 
itself; and this, it was suggested, might have been brought about by the upheaval 
of great bodies of continental and mountainous land where none now exist, and an 
accompanying depression of the existing continents or parts of them. That such a 
redistribution of the heavier material of the earth would result in some shifting of 
the axis of rotation admits of no doubt. The important question is, How much? 
What degree of rearrangement of land and sea would be needed to produce a shift 
of the amount required? It is purely a question of figures, and the necessary 
calculations can be made only by a mathematician. I ventured to suggest that 
