644 REPORT — 1903. 



to realise how many problems of succession and structure, of distribution and 

 causation, of ancient geography and modern landscape, are still awaiting solution 

 by the application of minute and exact zonal researches. 



On the other hand it goes without saying that the more a field geologist knows 

 of his rocks and fossils the better will his stratigraphical work become ; but this is 

 too obvious to require more than stating. 



Recreation. 



Geology, again, is of value as a recreative science, one which can be enjoyed 

 when cycling, walking, or climbing, even when sailing or travelling by rail. 

 Indeed it is difficult to find a place in which to treat the confirmed geologist if 

 you wish to make him a ' total abstainer.' There are others than those who must 

 make use of their science in their professions ; those in need of a hobby, those 

 interested in natural scenery, veterans who have seen much and now have leisure 

 and means to see more, and those fortunate ones who have not to earn their 

 bread by the sweat of their brain or brow. Many of these have done and are 

 doing good work for us, and many more would find real pleasure in doing so if 

 only they bad been inoculated in those early days when impressions sink deep. 

 Mr. A. S. Reid, who has had much and fruitful experience in teaching, tells me 

 that he has often seen seed planted in barren ground at school spring up and grow 

 and blossom as a country- holiday recreation after schooldays, or bear the good 

 fruit of solid research after lying dormant for many years. 



Observation, 



Wo may next look upon Geology as an educational medium from quite a 

 different point of view. If more than half the work of the man of science is the 

 collection of fact, and of actual fact as opposed to the result of the personal equa- 

 tion. Geology is perhaps the very best training-ground. There are such hosts of 

 facts to be still recorded, so many erroneous observations to be corrected, and so 

 much hope of extending observations on already recorded facts, that there is 

 plenty of work even for the man who can snatch but limited leisure from other 

 pursuits and the one who is a collector of fact and nothing else, as well as those 



' under whose command 

 ' Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand 

 ' Is Nature like an open book.' 



But in the collection of facts a wise and careful selection is constantly necessary 

 in order to pick out from the multitude those which are of exceptional value and 

 importance in the construction of hypotheses. Nature, it is true, cannot lie; but 

 she is an expert witness, and it takes an astonishing amount of acute cross-examina- 

 tion to elicit the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 



There is no science which needs such a variety of observations as Field Geology. 

 "When we remember that Sedgwick and Darwin visited Cwm Glas and carried 

 away no recollection of the features which now shout ' glaciation ' to everyone 

 who enters the Cwm, it is easy to see how alert must be the eyes and how agile 

 the mind of the man who has to carry a dozen problems in his mind at once, and 

 must be on the look-out for evidence with regard to all of them if he would work 

 out the structure of a difficult country ; and who is not only looking out for facts to 

 test his own hypothesis, but wishes to observe so accurately that if his hypothesis 

 gives way even at the eleventh hour his facts are ready to suggest and test its 

 successor. There is no class of men so well up in what may be called observa- 

 tional natural history generally as the practised field geologist, because he never 

 knows at what moment some chance observation — a mouud, a spring, a flower, a 

 feature, even a rabbit-hole or a shadow^may be of service to him. Not only 

 should he know his country in its every feature and every aspect, but he must 

 have, and in most cases soon acquires, that remarkable instinct, which can only be 

 denoted as an ' eye for a country,' with which generally goes a naturalist's know- 

 ledge of its plants and of its birds, beasts, and fishes. 



