SECTION C.—GEOLOGY. 
PLANT LIFE AND THE PHILOSOPHY 
. OF GEOLOGY 
ADDRESS BY 
PROF. W. T. GORDON, M.A., D.Sc. 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
Ar a recent celebration 1 the President of the Royal Society, Sir Frederick 
Gowland Hopkins, said ‘ It has been remarked, and not without a measure 
of truth, that the scientific investigator is more readily forgotten even by 
his own world than is the author or the artist. A literary work or a picture 
is complete in itself. It is an accomplishment involving finality and it 
remains intact through the years. . . . The investigator of Nature, on the 
other hand, adds his quota to a growing structure, to the great edifice of 
science as a whole, and as knowledge grows and widens and others build 
upon his work as a foundation it may become, as it were, submerged.’ 
What is true of the individual worker may be equally true of his subject, 
and the influence of research, when viewed out of its original setting, may 
be completely lost. To an extent this has happened in connexion with 
the study of fossil plants in their relation to geological science, and the 
request of the Council that the Sections, at this year’s meeting, might 
explore the possibility of illustrating how far their particular science had 
added to the sum total of human advancement has afforded a chance to 
consider this matter. Geology is the science that investigates the past 
history of the earth, and, as a consequence, involves considerations of the 
past life of the earth, both animal and plant. Discussions of past life will, 
of necessity, involve investigations of life conditions, and these will react 
on ideas of inorganic nature. So far as human beings are concerned, we 
have no difficulty in appreciating the economic side of geology ; but there 
is another side—the advancement of thought—that is not quite so obvious 
to ‘ the man in the street.’ 
Our study this morning is largely historical, and the views of the ancients 
will form a suitable beginning. We cannot accredit any real scientific 
knowledge of geology to them, but their utilisation of stone and metals 
shows that they were not unacquainted with phenomena now considered 
by the geologist as among the data of his science. Even in pre-historic 
times observation of, and inference from, natural phenomena cannot be 
denied. In a late neolithic hearth at Gullane, East Lothian, I have col- 
lected a piece of petrified wood—Pitys primeva—of Carboniferous age 
1 Unveiling of a plaque to William Hyde Wollaston on 14 Buckingham Street, 
W.C. 1, on July 4, 1934. 
