Barrell — Growth of Knowledge of Earth Structure. 149 



Neptunists to forces of crystallization, to slopes of orig- 

 inal deposition, or to sinking in of the roofs of caverns. 

 The causes he argues were heat combined with pressure. 

 As to the directions in which the pressure acted he is not 

 altogether clear, but apparently regards the pressure as 

 acting in upward thrusts against the sedimentary planes, 

 the latter yielding as warped surfaces. His method of 

 presentation is that of inductive reasoning from facts, 

 but he stopped short of the conception of horizontal com- 

 pression through terrestrial contraction. 



Jameson, professor of natural history in the same uni- 

 versity, in 1808 contemptuously ignores the work of Hut- 

 ton and Playfair in what he calls the "monstrosities 

 known under the name of Theories of the Earth.' ' In a 

 couple of pages he- confuses and dismisses the whole sub- 

 ject of deformation. He states : 7 



"It is therefore a fact, that all inclined strata, with a very 

 few exceptions, have been formed so originally, and do not owe 

 their inclination to a subsequent change. 



When we examine the structure of a mountain, we must be 

 careful that our observations be not too niicrological, otherwise 

 we shall undoubtedly fail in acquiring a distinct conception of 

 it. This will appear evident when we reflect that the geognostic 

 features of Nature are almost all on the great scale. In no case 

 is this rule to be more strictly followed than in the examination 

 of the stratified structure. 



By not attending to this mode of examination, geognosts 

 have fallen into numberless errors, and have frequently given 

 to extensive tracts of country a most irregular and confused 

 structure. Speculators building on these errors have repre- 

 sented the whole crust of the globe as an irregular and unseemly 

 mass. It is indeed surprising, that men possessed of any knowl- 

 edge of the beautiful harmony that prevails in the structure of 

 organic beings could- for a moment believe it possible, that the 

 great fabric of the globe itself, — that magnificent display of 

 Omnipotence, — should be destitute of all regularity in its struc- 

 ture, and be nothing more than a heap of ruins." 



This w^as the attitude of a leader of British opinion 

 toward the subject of deformational geology from which 

 the infant science had to recover before progress could be 

 made. The early maps w r ere essentially mineralogical 

 and lithological. The order of superposition and the 

 consequent sequence of age was regarded as settled by 

 Werner in Germany and not requiring investigation in 



7 Robert Jameson, Elements of Geognosy, pp. 55-57, 1808. 



