lxiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I9TI, 



From these comparisons has arisen a general knowledge of the 

 laws which govern the formation of rock-masses, their deformation 

 in building up the earth-crust, the interaction of internal and 

 external forces, the share of organic and inorganic agencies, the 

 4 lapse of waves and the life of stones.' 



It has often happened, however, that the application of a general 

 principle on a far minuter scale than was contemplated by its 

 founder has led on to a new development and to new results wholly 

 undreamed of by him. This has been especially true of the method 

 taught by the uniformitarians. 



All British geologists must admit that they owe to Godwin- 

 Austen and Ramsay such an ' intensive ' application of uniformi- 

 tarianism. They showed the interest appertaining to distinctive 

 and exceptional phases of present-day physiography, when considered 

 in relation to the abnormal characteristics of certain of the 

 geological formations. They seem to have brought us nearer to a 

 vivid visualisation of the past, they transformed stratigraphical 

 into historical Geology, changed the formations from 'the cemeteries 

 of once-living organisms ' into a world pulsating with the teeming 

 life of forgotten ages, a world in which we could see^ as in a series 

 of impressionist pictures, the lakes and mountains, the rivers and 

 volcanoes of the past. 



There were, of course, objectors who argued that no attempt to 

 find a complete parallel between any particular local or regional 

 phase of the past and a modern, existent, representative was likely 

 to be successful in every detail : that the exact grouping of all the 

 circumstances was not likely to recur at any one spot ; that, at best, 

 geographical parallels to explain past geological phases were only 

 likely to be found by the comparison of several existing areas. All 

 this may be freely admitted. Nevertheless the search gives a 

 keener incentive for the minute examination of details by both 

 Geologist and Geographer; a stimulation to the imagination to 

 attempt the explanation of unsolved difficulties ; a new impulse 

 for the Geographer to prosecute more detailed research in areas 

 already ' discovered and explained ' ; and a means for the expression 

 of some of the results of our science in a language and imagery 

 which are more likely to be understanded of the people than the 

 terminological exactitudes in which we are accustomed to clothe 

 our conclusions. 



My belief is that the method is not by any means exhausted, and 

 that with our growing knowledge of the surface of our earth on the 

 one hand and of the rocks on the other, we may hope to advance 



