B. S. Woodward— Mathematical Theories of the Earth. 355 



sartus. " Our Theory of Gravitation," he says, " is as good as 

 perfect : Lagrange, it is well known, has proved that the Plane- 

 tary System, on this scheme, will endure forever ; Laplace, 

 still more cunningly, even guesses that it could not have been 

 made on any other scheme. Whereby, at least, our nautical 

 logbooks can be better kept ; and water transport of all kinds 

 has grown more commodious. Of geology and geognosy we 

 know enough ; what with the labors of our Werners and Hut- 

 tons, what with the ardent genius of their disciples, it has 

 come about that now, to many a royal society, the creation of 

 a world is little more mysterious than the cooking of a dump- 

 ling, concerning which last, indeed, there have been minds to 

 whom the question How the apples were got in f presented diffi- 

 culties." This was written nearly sixty years ago, about the 

 time the sage of Ecclefechan abandoned his mathematics and 

 astronomy for literature to become the seer of Chelsea ; but 

 the force of its irony is still applicable, for we have yet to 

 learn, essentially, " How the apples were got in" and what 

 kind they are. 



As to the future we can only guess, less or more vaguely, 

 from our experience in the past and from our knowledge of 

 present needs. Though the dawn of that future is certainly 

 not heralded by rosy tints of over-confidence amongst those 

 acquainted with the difficulties to be overcome, the prospect on 

 the whole has never been more promising. The converging 

 lights of many lines of investigation are now brought to bear 

 on the problems presented by our planet. There is ample 

 reason to suppose that our day will witness a fair average of 

 those happy accidents in science which lead to the discovery of 

 new principles and new methods. We have much to expect 

 from the elaborate machinery and perfected methods of the 

 older and more exact sciences of measuring and weighing — 

 astronomy, geodesy, physics and chemistry. We have more to 

 expect, perhaps, from geology and meteorology with their vast 

 accumulations of facts not yet fully correlated. Much, also, 

 may be anticipated from that new astronomy which looks for 

 the secrets of the earth's origin and history in nebulous masses 

 or in swarms of meteorites. We have the encouraging stimu- 

 lus of a very general and rapidly growing popular concern in 

 the objects of our enquiries, and the freest avenues for the dis- 

 semination of new information ; so that we may easily gain 

 the advantage of a concentration of energy without centrali- 

 zation of personal interests. To those, therefore, who can 

 bring the prerequisites of endless patience and unflagging 

 industry, who can bear alike the remorseless discipline of re- 

 peated failure and the prosperity of partial success, the field is 

 as wide and as inviting as it ever was to a Newton or a 

 Laplace. 



