102 Prof. C. Laptcorth — Close of the Highland Controversy. 



By means of tlieir recent labours in the Durness-Eriboll district 

 Messrs. Peach and Home have familiarized themselves vpith the 

 minutest details of its component formations, and have studied and 

 interpreted its astounding stratigraphical phenomena in the area 

 •where they are most completely dissected by nature for the benefit 

 of the investigator. No one who has the real interest of geology at 

 heart but will earnestly hope and trust that they will uninterruptedly 

 continue the work they have so excellently begun until it is thoroughly 

 complete from Eriboll to Skye. 



May we soon see a Monograph upon the debatable land of the 

 North-West, that shall compare with those fine works issued by 

 the American Survey, and shall demonstrate both to our scientists 

 and to the educated public at large that the members of our British 

 Survey can not only lay down correctly upon their maps the true 

 places of the economic treasures of the rocky floor of our country, 

 but that they can interpret minutely and correctly the most com- 

 plicated geological phenomena of our mountain regions ! 



But a work of this kind need not clash in the slightest degree with 

 the contemporaneous work of amateurs in the same or in corre- 

 sponding fields of research. The subject is perfectly free and open 

 to all. Every investigator has a right to address himself to any 

 part of the work he pleases, and the right, if he deems it fitting to 

 exercise it, to demand a full recognition of the importance of his own 

 contribution to the common stock of discovery. No investigator, or 

 body of investigators, has any claim, beyond that conceded by 

 courtesy, to a monopoly in any special department of geology, local 

 or theoretical. The only available geological possessions of the 

 investigator are his abilities, his opportunities, and the fruits of the 

 good work he has done in the past. The only authority he dare 

 recognize with safety is Nature herself. The extremest penalty 

 for the slightest departure from the course she has marked out, 

 whether committed wilfully or in ignorance, will be mercilessly 

 exacted by her tardy but sure-footed avenger — Time. 



It seems to me that these are the conclusions that every one who 

 knows the facts is certain to draw for himself, from the startling and 

 sudden collapse of the brave Murchisonian hypothesis in our midst, 

 and that they ought to have the effect of banishing partisanship, and 

 of teaching us scientific toleration and mutual respect. 



At the present time the several groups of students of these old 

 rocks are all met together upon one and the same elevated platform 

 of a common opinion, having climbed up painfully thereto from 

 many different directions. The old subject of dispute has utterly 

 disappeared, and there is no longer any reasonable excuse for dissen- 

 sion. We have all been partly right and partly wrong. It is a time 

 for a hearty laugh all round, a time to shake hands and be friends. 



The inauguration of the Murchisonian hypothesis of the Higliland 

 succession marked the beginning in Britain of a period of bitter 

 controversy, of estrangement of Survey men and amateurs, of decline 

 in geological enthusiasm, and of comparative feebleness of geological 

 research. Let us trust that its downfall marks the commencement 



