Geology in Education and Practical Life. 443 



new geological principle must take its place amongst geographic 

 explanations as soon as it is freely admitted to be based on a sound 

 substratum of fact. 



I must confine myself to a few instances of what I mean. 

 Mr. Marr's geological work on the origin of lake-basins hasUed to 

 some remarkable and unexpected conclusions with regard to the 

 history and origin of the drainage of the Lake district. Some of 

 the veiy difficult questions raised by the physical geography of the 

 North Eiding of Yorkshire have received a new explanation from 

 the researches of Mr. Percy F. Kendall and Mr. A. E. Dwerryhouse, 

 an explanation which is the outcome of purely geological methods 

 of observation of geological materials. Again, the simple geological 

 intei'pretation of a well-known unconformity between Archa?an and 

 Triassic rocks has made it extremely probable that many of the 

 present landscapes, not only in the Midlands but elsewhere, may 

 be really fossil landscapes, of great antiquity and due to causes 

 quite different from those in operation there at the present day. 

 In mountain regions, too, it can only be by geological observation 

 that we shall ever determine what has been the precise direct share 

 of earth-movement in the production of surface-relief. Such examples 

 seem to indicate that many of the principles must be of geological 

 origin but of geographic application. 



While geology has been of direct scientific utility in topography 

 and geography there is another domain, that of economic geology, 

 which is entirely its own. The application of geology extends to 

 every industry and occupation which has to do with our connection 

 with the earth on which we live. Agriculture, engineering, the 

 obtaining of the useful and precious metals, chemical substances, 

 building materials, and road metals, sanitary science, the winning 

 and working of coal, iron, oil, gas, and water, all these and many 

 more pursuits are carried on the better if founded on a knowledge 

 of the structure of the earth's crust. Indeed, a geological map of 

 this country, showing rocks, solid and superficial, of which no 

 economic use could be made, would be nearly blank. Yet so much 

 has this side of the science been neglected of recent years that our 

 only comprehensive textbooks on it are altogether out of date. 



But in teaching geology as a technical science, or rather as one 

 with technological applications, one of the greatest difficulties before 

 us is to steer between two opposing schools, the so-called theoretical 

 school and the practical school. 



There are those who say there is but one geology, the theoretical, 

 and that a thorough knowledge of this must be obtained by all 

 those who intend to apply the science. Others think that this 

 is too much to ask — that the time available is not sufficient — and 

 that it is only necessary to teach so much of the subject as is 

 obviously germane to the question in hand. 



The best course appears to me to be the middle one between the 

 two extremes. If the engineer or miner, the watei'-finder or 

 quarryman, has no knowledge of principles, but only of such 



