616 _ Methods of Instruction in General Geology. [July 
METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN GENERAL 
GEOLOGY.: 
BY H., S. WILLIAMS: 
Wes I can offer on this subject must be confined to a few ~ 
suggestions upon points in which I see need of improve- 
ment, and some account of the various ways in which I am 
attempting to apply scientific method to the teaching of geology 
at Cornell University. 
_ The science of geology, like the earth, from which it derives — 
its name, bears a kind of maternal relation to the kindred sciences. © 
As the materials discussed by physics, chemistry, and even — 
biology come out of the earth, so the sciences treating of them — 
have their springs of origin, and have been separated off from — 
that more general science now represented by geology alone. — 
As the more exact sciences have become organized they have 
set up their own standards and their own more precise methods, 
while geology has not become quite freed from some of the © 
‘ancient crudities and myths. 2 
This peculiar relation borne by geology to kindred sciences — 
has much to do with the peculiarities of the methods in teaching _ 
it. Geology is less exact; there are more unsolved problems, or. 
problems the solution of which is recognized as tentative; there i 
are more points of contact with the dark regions of the unknown ~ 
an are found in the other more specialized sciences. a 
This doubtless arises from the fact that as human knowledge 
has grown and the problems have become more scientifically — 
‘interpreted, and the ultimate laws have been discovered, the — 
principles involved have been relegated to their more special | 
branches,—to physics, to chemistry, to astronomy, or to biology. 
On the other hand, when these more precise sciences come — 
-across vexatious questions too complex for either alone to handle, 
they toss them into the broad lap of geology, so that we are left — 
with the more mysterious and inexplicable phenomena of nature 
to wrestle with as best we ma 
This broad and fudamental nature of the subject-matter of 
* Delivered at the meeting of the American Society of TIRE at a 
. December 29, 1886. 
