282 Modern Geology. 



that now entitles geology fairly to take its place among 

 the exact sciences. Few persons now study the old 

 prophets and fathers in geology, and therefore I have 

 thought it well to give the foregoing imperfect sketch 

 of the slow progress of the steps by which at length 

 men have become able to analyse the order of d eposition 

 of formations, and of their fossilised contents, as abridged 

 in the foregoing chapters. 1 



1 The words formation, epoch, series, period, are in this book 

 only used as convenient terms. When analysed they often imply 

 that certain links, chapters, or whole books are missing in geological 

 history, epochs in fact unrepresented in given areas by stratified 

 formations. If I were to write a complete history of the British 

 rocks, I would endeavour to explain the special meaning of each of 

 these unrepresented gaps in time. A thorough-going physical 

 geologist, working in concert with a thorough palaeontologist, might 

 even hope to form a fair notion of the nature of the missing life of 

 the unrepresented epochs. 



