:president's addeess. 203 



farther than they do, if some at least of the works on the science 

 were written in the order in which lN"ature herself presents the 

 objects to our view. I know the inducement to commence ah 

 ovo is always strong, but it is not the way l^ature herself pre- 

 sents her works to us ; and I am sure if a comprehensive work 

 on Geology were written by an able man, commencing with the 

 vegetable mould and going down to the oldest gneiss, instead of 

 commencing with the gneiss and coming up to the material which 

 forms our gardens and fields, it would both be exceedingly pop- 

 ular, and it would do more than anything else to interest a 

 vastly increased number of persons in Geology, and to carry them 

 on, in the study of the science, to limits far beyond those now 

 reached by nine-tenths of those who buy books on the science 

 and commence to read them. In fact, by exclusive adherence 

 to the present system, the interest and opportunity of a large 

 proportion of those, who think they would like to know some- 

 thing of Geology, is exhausted, before they come to anything 

 they have seen, or are likely to see, in the rocks, earths, and 

 clays they meet with in their daily walks, or can visit on their 

 casual holidays.* 



But I must pass on to other topics My predecessors have 

 generally, I think, given on these occasions a resume of the 

 scientific progress, as regards the special branches in which we 

 "are interested, made by other labourers in other districts within 

 the 'year. This the labours of a populous parish in the County . 

 of Durham, to which I have been called, in place of the Superin- 

 tendence of Dr. Wintcrbottom's Nautical College at South 

 Shields, forbid my doing. But, as a Clergyman, and a scien- 

 tific man at the same time, I may, perhaps, fitly say a few words 

 on the supposed conflict between Christianity and Science, which 

 some persons think exists. Por my own part I do not believe in 

 any such conflict. I do not believe that, between Science rightly 

 so-called, — that is, between real, ascertained, established, scien- 

 tific truth, — and the Holy Scriptures, or the Gospel of Christ, or 



* I know of only one work on Geology written on the plan recommended above. That 

 is, however, a very important exception to the rule wliich Inis iiithorto so generally pre- 

 vailed. 1 allude to "The Student's Elements of Geology," by Sir Charles Lyell, the first 

 edition of which was published in 1871. 



