THE 
GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 
No. VIL_JANUARY 1865. 
ON SOME POINTS IN GEOLOGY AS SEEN TO-DAY. 
By the Eprror. 
ies our introductory observations on the past and present aspects 
of Geology, in No. I. of this Macazinr, we alluded to some 
special points much discussed now-a-days, such as ‘the origin of 
granite, the mode of formation of river-valleys, the excavation of 
lake-basins, the doctrine of homotaxis, and the origin of species.’ 
During our six-months’ existence, we have witnessed some advance 
in geological knowledge along these lines of research, though we 
cannot say that granite is much less mysterious, river-valleys and 
lake-basins far better understood, or the contemporaneity and suc- 
cession of species more easily explained, than heretofore. Yet 
geologists hold a taper in the darkness—a feeble light, showing the 
thick mist, and but little of the footway. Along this darksome path 
have gone the flitting letter of the ready writer, the weightier 
essay, the pamphlet, and the book,—all intended to be lights or 
signposts, and often fit and good. Indeed many have tried to illumine 
this track through the history of the past; and now where do we 
stand, and what can we discern around us? 
The four or five points of discussion above alluded to are neces- 
sarily of great importance to the Geologist ; and he can study them 
only with the help of Zoologist, Botanist, Physicist, and Chemist; 
and he must be paleontologist, mineralogist, and versed in the dy- 
namies of geology, if he expect to master them, for they refer to 
nearly all the divisions of his science. So close are the relations of 
fossils to strata, and of strata one to another and to other rock- 
masses, and of these to the earth as a whole, its atmosphere, its 
uneven surface of land and water, and all its living creatures, that, 
if we knew the history of species, their rise, succession, and distri- 
bution,—if we understood the modes in which all muds and sands 
and gravels have come down from high to lower levels, making 
heaps and shifting in beds, until, fixed by their own weight, and 
crushed perhaps in the foldings of a mountain-ridge, they are hard 
bound by chemical change, waiting for air and water to set them 
VOL. II.—NO. VII. B 
