6 4 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to do all we can to rid humanity of a burden so heavy to bear 

 and so injurious, materially and morally, to every member of a 

 civilized community. 



" Gold and iron are good 

 To buy iron and gold ; 

 All earth's fleece and food 

 For their like are sold. 



• ••••• 



" Nor kind nor coinage buys 

 Aught above its rate. 

 Fear, craft, and avarice 

 Can not rear a state." 



SOME MODEKN" ASPECTS OF GEOLOGY.* 



By GEOEGE H. "WILLIAMS, 



ASSOCIATE PBOFESSOR IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 



aEOLOGY has, from the earliest times, claimed the serious at- 

 tention of mankind, by appealing to two entirely different 

 sides of human character. In the first place, the reverence for the 

 mysterious in nature, which in untutored men amounts to worship, 

 has always been excited by the secrets of the earth ; while, in the 

 second place, the cupidity of man has always led him to explore 

 the rocks in quest of the mineral treasures which they contain. 



Thus we have at the very outset a theoretical and a practical 

 interest in geology, both of which have played a most important 

 part in the development of the science. From the earliest times 

 and under various guises we can trace their influence side by side, 

 and they are throughout typical of the two objects with which 

 Nature is always studied — as an end in herself or as a means to 

 an end — as science pure or applied. 



The ultimate object of geology is to decipher the complete 

 life-history of our planet. The biologist at his microscope suc- 

 ceeds by patient watching in tracing the entire existence of some 

 minute organism. Often the most surprising metamorphoses of 

 form and function are observed, and more than one generation 

 may be necessary to complete the cycle of changes. Through 

 phases far more varied and through conditions infinitely more 

 complex, we may follow the story of "world-life." The globe, 

 like the organism, is developing according to some inherent law 

 of its own ; while among its countless fellow-occupants of space 

 it is hardly more than the single insect amid the myriads which 

 compose its swarm. 



* Portion of an address delivered at the commencement exercises of the Worcester 

 Polytechnic Institute, June, 1888. 



