THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE II. VOL. III. 



No. I.— JANUARY, 1876. 



I. — Geological Progress. 



DUEING the infancy of the ''Geological Magazine" (1864-66), 

 the new year was appropriately commenced with a short article 

 on the Past and Present Aspects of Geology, or Geological Progress. 

 As the Magazine is now entering upon its " teens " — the Third 

 Volume of the Second Decade — and has attained an age in advance of 

 any magazine having similar objects, it may not be out of place to 

 return to the early plan, and commence the volume with some re- 

 flections upon the Science, which it is no flattery to state it has been 

 one medium of advancing. 



The increasing interest taken in the subject, is indicated by the 

 rapid augmentation in the number of Fellows of the Geological 

 Society of London, by the flourishing state of the Geologists' Asso- 

 ciation, and of our many local Geological Societies and Natural 

 History Field Clubs. Another happy sign is the increase of faith 

 and decrease of prejudice amongst the "non-scientific," in the 

 Antiquity of the Earth and of Man. "And as time has slipped by," 

 says Prof Huxley, " a happy change has come over Mr. Darwin's 

 critics. The mixture of ignorance and insolence which, at first, 

 characterized a large proportion of the attacks with which he was 

 assailed, is no longer the sad distinction of anti-Darwinian criticism. 

 Instead of abusive nonsense, which merely discredited its writers, 

 we read essays, which are, at worst, more or less intelligent and 

 appreciative."^ 



. Attention was drawn in the Magazine for August, 1865, to the 

 losses sustained by Geologists, through the death of those who had 

 become leaders in their several departments. 



Since then our obituary notices record, amongst others, the names 

 of Jukes, Salter, Murchison, Sedgwick, Phillips, and Lyell, — names 

 which include the most distinguished geologists that have been, and 

 whose careers are hardly likely to find in the future an equally 

 brilliant counterpart. But although Jukes and Salter had only 

 reached the full prime of life — the same cannot be said of Murchison, 

 Sedgwick, Phillips, and Lyell : living each of them to a good old 

 age, they saw that the foundations they had helped to lay were 

 enduring, and that the science, which in their early days was little 

 understood, and taught by few, had become one of the most popular. 

 Among these four geologists, it would seem invidious to draw com- 



^ Quarterly Eeview, July, 1871 ; Critiques and Addresses, 1873, p. 251, 



DECADE II. — VOL. III. — NO. I. 1 



