Sept. 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



THE BASIS OF TECHNOLOGY. 77 



less than a line suffices for all the generations of the most ancient 

 race. 



Yet geology is visibly an experimental science, which astronomy is 

 not. Our experiments upon the earth have indeed been more frequently 

 incidental than designed, yet human feet have not trod the globe for 

 thousands of years without leaving footprints upon it. And although 

 with all our mines, tunnels, canals, bridges, roads, railways, break- 

 waters, and harbours, we make no greater change on the crust of the 

 globe than the earth-worms do on the soil of our gardens, or the sea- 

 slugs on the sand of our shores, still, like them, we do leave behind us 

 an impression which is not only immense, as tried by human standards, 

 but sufficient, we may believe, permanently to distinguish our planet 

 from all others. Such determinations, also, as those of the heights of 

 mountains, the depths of oceans, and the limits of our atmosphere : 

 such observations as those of the size, and the shape, and the weight of 

 the earth : such bold questions, boldly answered in the affirmative, as — 

 " Is the sea open to the four winds of heaven ? and may we sail upon 

 it whithersoever we will ? " " Is there a great continent to the west of 

 Europe, behind the arch of the sea ; a land of gold, near the setting 

 sun 1 " " Is the ocean a sphere as well as the land, and may we let loose 

 from our sea-rock without anchor on board, and measure the great circle, 

 floating every day on new waters, till we moor beneath the white cliffs 

 of our sea-rock again ?" Such achievements, although a strict logic must 

 refer them solely to observational science, inasmuch as they imply no 

 transformative power over the objects with which they deal, yet include 

 in the instruments with which they are effected so many fruits of trans- 

 formative experiment, and are wrought out so thoroughly in its spirit, 

 that we cannot easily reconcile ourselves to calling their heroes simply 

 observers. They plainly deserve a middle place. Geology is half of 

 the heavens : half of the earth. She stands an imperial queen, with 

 her head among the stars, and her tresses are white with the snows of 

 ages ; but her feet, graceful and quick, are beneath the young grass, and 

 are wet with the dews of to-day. Her hands are often raised to shade 

 her eyes, as she gazes through space to exchange greetings with each 

 sister-presence in the worlds around. But her fingers are as often busy 

 with homely cares, and with bended forehead she traces for the tenant- 

 lord of her estate the best track for his railway and channel for his 

 canal, and shows him where to find coal and iron, and how to dig for 

 gold. The geologist, indeed, is so essentially a miner, a quarryman, a 

 rock-blaster, a stone-breaker, a hill-climber, and leveller, that we do not 

 realize him without such tools in his hands as to the imagination appear 

 more potential than mere instruments of observation. Geology thus 

 forms a link between the contrasted groups of sciences. It is to some 

 extent experimentally transformational, and will slowly, as the ages roll 

 on, become more possessed of this character. Registrative it scarcely is 

 at all. It does not, for example, warn us of earthquakes, but only tells 



