248 Prof, Silliman's Address before the 



greatly circumscribed, and restricted within the hmits which sci- 

 ence and sound reason prescribe. Happily, it is the less neces- 

 sary for me, on the present occasion, to trace the effects of water, 

 since they have been, along with the general powers of geology, 

 so ably elucidated by our distinguished foreign guest,* in his 

 learned, elegant, and instructive works. In regard to our scientific 

 and social relations, we will not however view him as a foreigner, 

 while we salute him as our associate and friend. For to him, 

 more than to any other or all other writers on geology, we owe 

 our recovery from the illusions of dreams and visions, regarding 

 imaginary powers supposed formerly to exist, but to have become 

 exhausted or greatly enfeebled or even extinct, in modern times. 

 He has proved to us, that the powers of nature are the same now 

 that they have ever been ; that except the act of creation and 

 the first outbreak of the new-born elements and energies, there 

 was nothing in the geological laws of former ages different from 

 the present ,* and that the causes now in operation, acting with 

 greater or less intensity, are sufficient to produce the effects of 

 ■earlier epochs. 



These positions are sustained by an ample train of induction 

 from facts, drawn from a wide range of geological history, as 

 well as of laborious, exact, and acute personal observation, carried 

 on through many countries and through a long series of years. 

 We account it therefore a privilege to have made his personal ac- 

 quaintance, and many of us have been favored with opportunities 

 of witnessing his methods of illustrating, in pubUc lectures, the 

 science which he has so successfully cultivated. Our fine packet 

 ships, and still more the winged Atlantic steamers, have so much 

 diminished the difficulties and delays of the passage, that we may 

 expect a more frequent renewal of the visits of enlightened and 

 cultivated individuals from Europe, 



In 1839, Dr. Daubeny took a rapid survey of our country, and 

 after his return, favored us with an interesting summary of our 

 geology. We believe that no gentlemen from the scientific fac- 

 ulties of the English universities had ever before examined the 

 United States. 



* Charles Lyell, Esq., was in the United States from the first week in August, 

 1841, to July 16, 1842, and being present in the Association of American Geologists 

 at Boston in the last week of April, 1842, took part in their debates. See abstract 

 of their proceedings in the first number of this volume. 



