DECEMBER 24, 1897.] 
Werner, although in the end largely sup- 
planting the latter. This opposing school 
had as its chief representative the Scotch 
scientist Hutton (1726-1797), who, al- 
though never wielding the personal influ- 
ence of Werner, slowly developed, by actual 
observation, a system of geological thought 
that forms the basis of much of modern 
geology. Hutton himself published but 
little regarding his ideas. His chief work, 
entitled ‘Theory of the Harth, with Proofs 
and Illustrations,’ appeared in 1795; but 
Playfair (1748-1819), his friend, has given 
us, in his ‘Illustrations of the Huttonian 
Theory of the Earth,’ an admirable exposi- 
tion of his views. Hutton, unlike Werner, 
had ‘no preconceived theory about the 
origin of rocks,’ but considered that ‘ the 
past theory of our globe must be explained 
by what can be seen to be happening now.’ 
He observed that the greater part of the 
land consists ‘ of compacted sediment which 
had been worn away from some pre-existing 
continent, and had been spread out in 
strata over the bed of the sea,’ and that the 
strata had often become ‘inclined, some- 
times placed on end or even stupendously 
contorted andruptured.’ Recognizing as of 
fundamental importance the internal high 
temperature of the globe, of which volcanoes 
are one of the proofs, he distinguished three 
types of eruptive rock—whinstone, por- 
phyry and granite—which he considered 
had been intruded from below among the 
rocks with which they are now found asso- 
ciated. Hutton, to be sure, drew no dis- 
tinction between mineral veins and dykes, 
referring them all to intrusive origin and 
even regarded the flint concretions of the 
Chalk to be of similar origin. 
We find also in the Huttonian theory 
practically ‘the whole of the modern doc- 
trine of earth sculpture,’ while there is also 
‘the germ of the Lyellian theory of meta- 
morphism.’ Hven the modern conception 
of glacial action is foreshadowed in the 
SCIENCE. 
929 
recognition of the potency of glaciers in 
the transport of detritus. Hutton ‘rigor- 
ously guarded himself against the admis- 
sion of any principle which could not be 
founded on observation,’ and never permit- 
ted himself to make any assumptions. It 
is said of him that ‘he was a man absorbed 
in the investigation of nature to whom per- 
sonal renown was a matter of utter indif- 
ference.’ 
Among Hutton’s friends was Hall (1761- 
1830), to whom we owe ‘ the establishment 
of experimental research as a branch of 
geological investigation.’ His experiments 
upon the fusion of rocks, in which he showed 
the effects of the rate of cooling upon tex- 
ture, are of much interest in the history of 
volcanic geology. Other experiments upon 
the effect of pressure in modifying the in- 
fluence of heat, and his machine for con- 
torting layers of clay, are hardly less sig- 
nificant. 
For a time the Huttonian views in Scot- 
land received a setback by the appointment 
of Jameson (1774-1854), a pupil of Wer- 
ner, to the professorship of geology at 
Edinburgh, but upon the death of the great 
master, in 1817, his views, already opposed 
openly even by some of his pupils, rapidly 
declined in favor, and the old controversy 
between the Neptunist and Vulcanist grad- 
ually disappeared. 
The fifth lecture is devoted to a consider- 
ation of the rise of stratigraphical geology, 
as shown by the work of Giraud-Soulavie, 
Cuvier, Brongniart and D’Omalius d’ Halloy 
in France, and Michelland William Smith in 
England. To Giraud-Soulavie (1752-1813) 
‘the merit must be assigned,’ according to 
the author, ‘of having planted the first 
seeds from which the magnificent growth 
of stratigraphical geology in France has 
sprung.’ In a series of volumes upon the 
natural history of southern France, of which 
the first two appeared in 1780, he described 
the caleareous mountains of the Vivarais 
