TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 773 



dinated, except where they are important in explaining the origin of certain broad 

 features, such as familiar and local landscapes. It is proposed to avoid the use 

 of microscopic sections, and rather to rely upon powdered specimens for the deter- 

 mination of the constituents of such simple rocks as are dealt with. The greatest 

 stress for general purposes is to be laid upon an outline of stratigraphical geology, 

 and its illustration by such beds, unconformities, &c., as may be exhibited in the 

 environs of the school. The outdoor character of the study should be insisted on ; 

 And the fact that the broader generalisations of the science are based on the colla- 

 tion of local observations will not be among the least valuable results of the intro- 

 djictioa of the subject into our educational systems. 



On Geologif ill Professional Education. Bi/ Professor G. A. Leboue, 

 AI.A., F.G.S., of the Durham College of Science, Neivcastle-upon-Tyne. 



The author has for many years been engaged in teaching geology in a Univer- 

 sity college situated in a centre of great mining and manufacturing activity. 

 The students with whom he had to deal were many of them, therefore,^ being 

 educated for some branch or other of engineering, and took up the subject of 

 geology with a view to its future utility rather than as an academic subject 

 merely. For professional students of this type he thought that the ordinary 

 geological courses in colleges of this kind were, as a rule, too long. In hisown 

 college, for instance, geology comprised two or three annual series of about ninety 

 lectures each, with a field-day every week and a field-week every year, besides 

 (for second and third year men) at least eight hours per week of laboratory work. 

 This was not too long for men going up for title or degree examinations in geology, 

 and still leas was it too much for those, necessarily few in number, who intended 

 to become professional geologists; but for future mining or civil engineers and 

 managers of works he contended that it was excessive. Such men need not be 

 trained into experts in geology. It was enough that they should leave their 

 college with so clear a grasp of the principles of the science and such an insight 

 into its methods that they should be enabled to understand the reports of the 

 geological experts whom they might employ, and to distinguish between the real 

 expert and the quack. At present the coinclusions of a report are often all that 

 appears practical to and all that is really read by the interested parties. This would 

 be otherwise had they been taught to understand the reasons on which the con- 

 clusions are based. A sound knowledge of principles could alone give this com- 

 petence, and this could be obtained in at most a single year's course of the length 

 previously referred to. 



But if he advocated shorter courses for professional students it must not be 

 supposed that he was therefore in any way in favour of special courses for special 

 men. There was but one geology, whatever be the future career of the learner. 

 There was no more a ' geology for engineers ' or a ' geology for agriculturists ' than 

 there was (as had been suggested years ago in ' Exeter Change ') a ' geology for the 

 blind 'or a ' geology for rural postmen.' The principles were the same for all, 

 though in the time "to be spent and in the number and selection of the illustrative 

 facts brought under the notice of students there was ample room for judicious 

 adjustment. 



In attempting to carry out those views he had been overwhelmingly impressed 

 by the value of practical work. If, as Professor Cole had well urged, outdoor 

 work was useful for schoolboys, it was doubly useful for older students. The field 

 was to the geologist what the laboratory was to the chemist, and for petrology 

 and palaeontology geologists now needed laboratories of their own. 



As regards field-work, he had found it useful to adopt a scheme in which the 

 region examined by his students was treated as an unknown bit of country would 

 be in the limited time at the disposal of the class; maps and reports were 

 drawn up exclusively from the observations actually made, leaving out of 

 consideration all points of which the knowledge had been derived from other 



