420 P. W. Stuart-Menteath — Appendix to Pijrenean Geology. 



Beauraont had the fatal defect of offering means of verification. The 

 tunnel of Gardanne has proved that no means of verification can affect 

 the theory of his successors. The engineer commissioned to find coal 

 under the supposed Trias of Biarritz and Cardona, or to tunnel across 

 the supposed Cretaceous basis of the Pyrenees, may find in psychology, 

 but not in the rocks, the justification of the task he undertakes. 



The very latest section of Gavarnie is presented in M. Bertrand's 

 book. It represents the overlying Palaeozoic in the form of a feeding- 

 bottle, rammed into the heart of the Cretaceous mass that rises from 

 Spain to form the Cirque. It is a caricature of the first erroneous 

 section of M. Bresson, combined with a confusion of Carez, who makes 

 the Cretaceous in question overlie the Palaeozoic by 1,500 yards, 

 through mistaking the Port de Pinede for the Port Biel. Bresson's 

 latest section recognizes the fact that the Hippurite limestone forms 

 a vast wedge between the Spanish Cretaceous and the Palaeozoic ; 

 that it abuts on the great fault which Bertrand is pleased to suppress ; 

 and that, far from entering the heart of the Cretaceous, it may 

 probably have left outliers on its summit. Perspective illusion has 

 unfortunately made him sketch the fault as dipping at 23° to the 

 south in place of its real dip of 50°. M. Bertrand similarly sketches 

 a perspective illusion wherever a practical geologist has detected 

 a vertical fault, and by selecting the point of view of his ' coupes 

 perspectives ' he obtains any overlap he can wish for. He selects 

 districts never visited by tourists, but Biarritz and Gavarnie have 

 amply illustrated his method. His gratuitous conjectures regarding 

 districts he has never seen are directlj^ contrary to the facts which 

 I have mapped in mining surveys where accuracy is required. They 

 serve the purpose of making local observation intolerable and d priori 

 inexact. As Suess reforms the geology of Central Asia, so his 

 emulators deal with the Pyrenees. It is the business of official 

 science to solve all problems at the cheapest rate. The simple 

 suppression of verification will irresistibly appeal to the ' good 

 business head.' The detection of self-contradiction is the only 

 effectual check on the new science, which protects plausible con- 

 jectures by defaming every proved expert. The new map and Guide 

 to Interlaken, by Baltzer and his pupils, is a protest against the 

 method applied by M, Douville and his subordinates to Biai'ritz, 

 Interlaken, and Gavarnie. The forcible suppression of my papers is 

 a tribute to the views I share with Baltzer and every local expert 

 from Sicily to the Hartz. The interpretation of the Scotch Highlands 

 proceeds on the assumption that such problems are clearly solved else- 

 where. Their excellent description proves them to be as obscure as 

 when Eamsay, in the presence of Nicol, explained them to me forty 

 years ago. The current denial that science bristles with such 

 antinomies has attained a somewhat desperate culmination. But the 

 art of manipulating with the amassed wealth of observation is not 

 proved to be the only legitimate content of human reason, although 

 the entire resources of chromolithography are recklessly squandered in 

 the attempt to exterminate direct research. 



