THE 



JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY 



NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1904 



THE RELATIONS OF THE EARTH SCIENCES IN VIEW 

 OF THEIR PROGRESS IN THE NINETEENTH 

 CENTURY.^ 



Facts of earth science have now been so abundantly acquired and 

 so thoroughly systematized that there is some danger of our substi- 

 tuting the schemes in which earth-knowledge has been summarized 

 for first-hand knowledge of the earth itself. 



For a fundamental matter like the globular form of the earth we 

 resort to a hand globe, so admirable in its imitation of nature that 

 we must beware lest the little globe rather than the earth in its true 

 dimensions satisfies our imagination. We have so conveniently 

 divided the geological record of the earth's history into ages and 

 periods that their easily repeated names are apt to replace the laborious 

 conception of long divisions of time. 



Our escape from the danger of taking scheme for fact has lain in 

 the resort to individual observation, and the past century must long 

 be famous for the extent to which advantage has been taken of the 

 opportunity for outdoor study. 



The earth has been explored and measured as never before. 

 The lands have been mapped, the oceans have been charted by 

 original observers. The air has been followed in its circuits, great 

 and small. The structure of the earth's crust has been patiently 

 traced out. Thus "Go and see" came to be our watchwords one 

 hundred years ago. As long as we, like Antaeus of old, can return 

 to the earth for new stores of the strength that we find in facts, we 

 need not fear being strangled by any voluminous Hercules of theory. 



I An address delivered before the Department of Earth Sciences in the World's 

 Congress of Science and Arts at St. Louis, September 20, 1904. 

 Vol. XII, No. 8 669 



