Mays, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



491 



enthusiasm of grappling -with the great gen- 

 eral problems of geology : but he himself did 

 much to introduce and urge forward the 

 more accurate methods, if less daring theo- 

 ries, of modern times. The story of his 

 forty year's connection with the British 

 Survey, first as assistant and then as local 

 director for England under De la Beche, 

 then as local director of England and Scot- 

 land under Murchison, and finally as Di- 

 rector General himself, is literallj- a history 

 of the Survey itself. The book is illumin- 

 ated too and its value enhanced by the 

 pictures of all the principal men of the 

 Sui-vey, whose work every geologist knows, 

 but whose faces are now perhaps seen for 

 the first time. 



The story of Ramsay's career is also in 

 no small degree the historj- of the develop- 

 ment of geological science in England. For 

 in the beginning he sat at the feet of the 

 geological Gamaliels, imbibing their spirit, 

 and at the end he gathered about himself 

 all the most ardent and progressive spirits 

 and guided their course. Many modem 

 ideas he himself initiated, while others he 

 carried forward with his characteristic ar- 

 dor. 



In this connection it is interesting to note, 

 in the history of science, the transfer of 

 study from the remote to the near at hand, from 

 the abstract to the concrete and often ft-om the 

 obscure to the obvloii/'. Thus the field of 

 study was Astronomy before Geology, the 

 Science of the Stare before the Science of 

 the Earth. So also it was dead things be- 

 fore living things, and man last of all. This 

 is doubtless mainly due to the fact that the 

 nearest things, and things most closely con- 

 nected with our highest interests are also 

 the most complex and most diflicult to re- 

 duce to law. But this is not all. There is 

 a fascination in the remote, the hidden and 

 the obscure which picjues our curiosity, while 

 we neglect phenomena which lie on the sur- 

 face and which therefore seem common and 



trivial because we see them every day. 

 The history of geology is an excellent illus- 

 tration of this. The early geologists loved 

 to speculate on the interior of the earth and 

 its mysterious forces. Xext rock strata, 

 their positions, successions, foldings, faults, 

 etc., engaged attention. In the meantime 

 the surface configuration of the earth, moun- 

 tains and plains, ridges and valleys, soils 

 and underlying rock surfaces, in fact all the 

 most obvious and obtrusive features were 

 neglected. Now, the change from the study 

 of interior structure alone to the studj- of 

 surface configurations in relation to interior 

 structures, one of the most fascinating 

 branches of geology, took place during Eam- 

 say's times, and he himself was one of the 

 most active agents in bringing it about. 

 From the first he was deeply interested in 

 the agency of exterior forces as contrasted 

 with interior forces ; with destructive as 

 contrasted with constructive agencies. Still 

 later he became interested in the signifi- 

 cance of soils and underlying rock surfaces. 

 He it was, therefore, who first gave strong 

 impulse to glacial geologj- in England. 

 For the seed sown by Agassiz found, at 

 first, but poor soil iu England. 



Again, it is instructive to note also the 

 effect of physical environment on the course 

 of geological science. The incessant beat- 

 ing of waves on the limited shore line of 

 the ' tight little sea-girt island ' of Great 

 Britain, and the ravages produced by these 

 attacks on some parts, early impressed the 

 minds of Briti.sh geologists with a strong 

 sense of the power of the sea. In the study 

 of erosion, therefore, all the early geologists, 

 Kamsay among the number, attributed far 

 too much to marine denudation, while rain 

 and rivers were almost neglected as being 

 of little importance in comparison. It was 

 apparently for the same reason that the 

 iceberg theory of glaciation took so firm a 

 hold and was so hard to displace in Eng- 

 land. It was only by travel on the conti- 



