ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OP THE PRESIDENT. XXXIX 



illustrated with maps and plates. This work contained the first 

 sketch of the geology of the Hehrides and the Orkneys. 



But the real period of Jameson's celebrity as a mineralogist and a 

 geologist dates from the year 1800, when he left his native country 

 for Freyburg, where he remained nearly two years studying mine- 

 ralogy and geology under the famous Werner. Jameson fully ac- 

 knowledged that it was from him he first derived clear and distinct 

 views of the structure and classification of rocks. This opinion is 

 confirmed by Couybeare, who says, *' We are chiefly indebted to the 

 reports of Werner's pupils, especially to those of Jameson, for our 

 knowledge of Werner's general views, so fully developed in his lec- 

 tures, and there only." Jameson also observed, in a passage which is 

 too important not to be quoted on this occasion, pointing as it does 

 to the very fundamental principle of all our modern geological inves- 

 tigations, that "Werner taught that mineralogical and geological 

 characters, and characters derived from organic remains, were to be 

 employed in determining formations, and that probably the same 

 general geological arrangements would be found to prevail through- 

 out the earth. But," he added, " the truth or falsity of this view in 

 regard to the similarity of formations, can only be determined by the 

 united labours of geologists continued for a long series of years." 

 This, it may be observed, is the very position our science now occu- 

 pies, tracing out geological formations from one hemisphere to the 

 other, referring the fossils of India to the age of the Chalk of Eng- 

 land, and comparing the Palaeozoic fossils of Australia with those of 

 Great Britain and America. Thus, as Prof. Jameson admitted, it is 

 to Werner that we are principally indebted for our present highly 

 interesting views of the natural history of fossil organic remains ; and 

 in confirmation of this opinion, Prof. Jameson at a subsequent period 

 vindicated the geognosy of Werner from the attacks made upon it by 

 the Edinburgh Review. 



In 1804 Jameson returned to England in consequence of the state 

 of his father's health. Shortly afterwards, on the death of Dr. Walker 

 in the same year, Jameson was appointed Professor of Natural His- 

 tory ; and from that period, by his admirable lectures, founded in a 

 great measure on the sound mineralogical and geological views of his 

 friend and master the Professor of Freyburg, he raised the Edinburgh 

 school of Natural History to the proud pre-eminence it has occupied 

 for the last half-century. In the same year, he published the first 

 part of the first volume of his * Mineralogical Description of Scot- 

 land ;' his other labours, however, prevented the completion of the 

 work. In 1808 he founded at Edinburgh the Wernerian Natural 

 History Society, of which he was elected perpetual President. 



In 1809 he published the 'Elements of Geognosy,' a work which 

 contributed more to introduce the doctrines of the Wernerian school 

 into England than any other publication ; and from this time may be 

 dated the antagonism between the Wernerian and the Huttonian 

 doctrines, as advocated by the northern geologists. Nor was the 

 spirit of partisanship thus engendered altogether useless, inasmuch 

 as its final effect was to call attention to the study of, and to diffuse a 



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