C.—GEOLOGY 55 
there is practically no scientific observation in the whole work. Burnet 
studied books, not nature, but his eloquence seems to have made up, in 
_ the estimation of his literary friends, for his want of scientific knowledge. 
Woodward, on the contrary, was a great observer in the field, and was 
one of the figure-heads of his day, if not always a popular one. His 
methods for obtaining and recording scientific data are so thoroughly 
sound that it is difficult to believe they were formulated two hundred and 
_ fifty years ago. His questionnaire method of obtaining information, 
when he could not personally travel to the localities in question, is one of 
the earliest uses of an important present-day practice in scientific investi- 
gations. But his deductions from the data he received were often so 
incredibly unsound that one wonders at the enormous influence he 
attained. Accepting Noah’s flood as universal, and realising that the 
_ fossils obtained in northern Europe, in hard limestones and shales, were 
very different from the modern-looking Tertiary specimens from the 
deposits in Mediterranean lands, and very difficult to accept as of organic 
origin when compared with them, he imagined that the flood must have 
loosened the very foundations of the earth. He considered ‘ the whole 
terrestrial globe to have been taken to pieces and dissolved at the flood, 
and the strata to have settled down from this promiscuous mass as any 
earthy sediment from a fluid.’*® Gravitational segregation, to use a 
petrological phrase in a totally irrelevant connexion, collected the heavier 
fossils in the lower and more solid rocks, and the lighter forms in the 
upper beds. Woodward, therefore, did not deny like some of his con- 
temporaries, Lhuyd, Plot and others, that fossils were organic, thus 
gaining the favour of his non-scientific friends by his common sense ; 
and he did not antagonise the clerics, for he accepted as an explanation 
for the occurrence of these fossils an event about the reality of which they 
were perfectly satisfied. It is small wonder that his theory was hailed 
with acclamation on all hands. Yet he had personally some misgivings, 
for he admits that the discovery of shells ‘ in the most retired and inward 
parts of the most firm and solid rocks . . . almost everywhere’ is enough 
_ to make one believe they are ‘mere minerals,’ especially when found in 
places ‘ so deep in the earth and far from the sea, as these are commonly 
found.’ Others were also sceptical of Woodward’s views, and Ray,?® 
_ exposing some of the inaccuracies, stated that Woodward ‘ must have 
_ invented the phenomena for the sake of confirming his bold and strange 
hypothesis.” The hypothesis, however, was too excellent an escape 
from the impasse that geological philosophy had now reached to be 
relinquished readily. 
PALZOBOTANY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
Among Woodward’s most enthusiastic followers was Scheuchzer of 
_ Geneva, who translated Woodward’s work into Latin, and thus spread 
his theories through the continent of Europe. With Steno’s ideas as 
well as Woodward’s to choose from, it is difficult to understand why 
8 Essay towards a Natural History of the Earth, 1695, Preface. 
® Ray, Consequences of the Deluge, p. 165. 
