XCvi PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I9O3, 



Once the people become accustomed by means of their school-teaching, 

 and by constant sight of these maps in the post-offices, to regard 

 them as a factor in their daily life, that which is now a luxury for 

 the learned and the few will become more or less a necessity for 

 the general and the many ; and they will demand, for themselves 

 and their children, a more intimate acquaintance with that Earth 

 Knowledge of which these maps are a symbol — a consummation in 

 which the science of Geology will benefit by no means last and by 

 no means least. 



Conclusion. — But to what extent instruction in that earth- 

 knowledge of which Geology is the soul and centre will constitute 

 an integral portion of the general education during the present 

 century must depend in part on the efforts of geologists, and in 

 part on the enlightenment and emancipation of the educationalists 

 themselves. As geologists, however, we have the assurance, justified 

 by unbroken tradition, that our views will eventually be accepted 

 simply because they are inevitable. 



In the direction of practice also wo may look forward with equal 

 confidence, especially to the spread of geological facts and principles 

 and to the extension of the applications of our science. The enormous 

 increase in the utilization of the mineral resources of our country 

 which is now going on, and the rapid opening up of the many mineral 

 districts throughout the worldwide possessions of the Empire, bring 

 day by day a larger array of students to our science from the side 

 of economics. 



And turning to the side of research, we are all of us aware that 

 some of the grandest and most difficult problems of our science 

 still await solution — problems as attractive, as stimulating, and 

 as rich in promise as were any of those of the past. And if that 

 past be a true index of the future, we may be well satisfied that 

 there is no science which need outstrip ours in its rate of progress. 

 When we call to mind that at the commencement of the great 

 Erench Revolution, whose echoes have as yet hardly died away, our 

 science was just struggling into existence, and that in the short time 

 which has since elapsed it has placed itself abreast of the foremost, 

 we have every incentive to push forward and to emulate those great 

 pioneers in the science, in the mighty sum of whose conquests we 

 rejoice and take a pardonable pride. 



We have indeed abundant cause for pride, yet none for vain- 

 glory. No science, it is true, has made so swift an advance as 



