﻿IXX PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Maj I908, 



their reDown may be considered as still formiDg part of the 

 distinction which in the course of years the Society has gained. 

 Hence, in trying to appraise the influence of the Society on the 

 early development and progress of geology, we ought not to gauge 

 it solely by the bulk and quality of the publications which the 

 Society itself has issued. We should also take into account the 

 prestige which the Society acquired, from having among its 

 Presidents and other office-bearers and among its unofficial 

 members men who had gained world-wide celebrity from the works 

 which they had published elsewhere. 



Into this wide field of independent publication, however, I do 

 not mean to enter. I wash to confine mj'- remarks to a rapid review 

 of the more salient features of the general mass of contributions to 

 geology which have appeared in the Society's own publications 

 during the century of which we have lately celebrated the close. 

 Obviously such a review will not supply a complete picture of the 

 contemporaneous progress of the science even in this country, but 

 it will at least include an indication of not a few of the more 

 marked phases and steps in that progress. 



Eorn at a time of keen conflict between two rival schools of 

 thought, the Geological Society could hardly fail to be afi'ected by 

 the controversy that was then being waged outside its walls, both 

 in this country and on the Continent. Our founders, indeed, started 

 with the laudable desire to collect and examine the facts of Nature, 

 rather than to discuss any theoretical explanations of them. As 

 Lyell has recorded, 



' The reaction provoked by the intemperance of the conflicting parties produced 

 a tendency to extreme caution. Speculative views were discountenanced, and 

 through fear of exposing themselves to the suspicion of a bias towards the 

 dogmas of a party, some geologists became anxious to entertain no opinion 

 whatever on the causes of the phenomena, and were inclined to scepticism even 

 where the conclusions deducible from observed facts scarcely admitted of 

 reasonable doubt.' ^ 



1 ' Principles of Geology ' 10th edit. (1867) p. 85. Greenough, the first 

 President of the Society, was the living embodiment of this excessive dislike of 

 speculation, and not improbably the influence of his example perpetuated it after 

 his time. As an illustration of the position which he took up, the following 

 passage may be cited from his Presidential Address for 1834, wherein he 

 opposed the modern doctrine of the elevation of land : — ' A heated central 

 nucleus is a mere invention of fancy, traceable, I believe, to no other source 

 than the hope of obtaining a good argument from the multiplication of bad 

 ones. To the Huttonian and every other geological sectary who relies on this 

 postulate, I say, be cautious: " incedis per ignes dolosos".' (Proc. Geol. Soc. 

 vol. ii, p. 61.) 



