ii 



inquiry which, throiighout his after life, he so successfully pursued. The 

 result of Scrope's studies and investigations, thus carried on independently 

 and almost unaided, was to make him an enthusiastic supporter of the 

 Huttonian doctrine, that causes similar in kind to those now in operation 

 were quite competent to have produced all past geological changes, and 

 at the same time a most determined opponent of "Werner's teaching con- 

 cerning the aqueous origin of basalt, and of Yon Buch's theory of " eleva- 

 tion-craters." 



In 1824 Scrope was elected a Fellow of the G-eological Society ; and 

 having returned to England, he sought the society of those engaged in 

 similar inquiries with himself, and in Charles Lyell found an earnest 

 fellow-student vvho was able to understand and sympathize with his geolo- 

 gical convictions. Most of the members of the infant G-eological Society 

 seem at that time to have come to a tacit agreement to lay aside all con- 

 sideration of those questions relating to the philosophy of their science, 

 which had, in the case of the generation then passing away, been the 

 means of provoking so much heated and embittered controversy. To three 

 of their number, however, such practical abnegation of their responsibili- 

 ties was impossible ; and it is to the boldness and sagacity of Lyel], 

 Scrope, and De la Beche that geology is indebted for the initiation of its 

 modern advance and development. At the period when Scrope returned 

 from the continent Lyell had long been engaged in that patient collection 

 of facts illustrating the changes produced on the earth's surface by the 

 operations of existing causes, which at a subsequent date enabled him to 

 produce his incomparable ' Principles of Greology ' ; and between the two 

 thinkers the closest friendship soon became established, attended with a 

 freedom of intercourse which was doubtless of great advantage to both of 

 them in preparing for their joint attack upon the prevailing geolo- 

 gical errors. 



Scrope wrote several memoirs relating to the geology of the coun- 

 tries he had visited, and in 1825 published his ' Considerations on Yol- 

 canos.' The dominant idea in this remarkable work is well illustrated 

 in the passage which follows an enumeration of the elfects of atmospheric 

 agencies, of the circulation of water on the earth's surface, and of volcanos 

 and earthquakes in causing the destruction and reproduction of rocks, 

 changes of level, and the transference of new rocks from the earth's 

 interior to its surface. These the author declared to be " changes which 

 in their general characters bear so strong an analogy to those which are 

 suspected to have occurred in the earlier stages of the world's history, 

 that, until the processes which give rise to them have been maturely 

 studied under every shape, and then applied with strict impartiality to 

 explain the appearances in question, and until after a long investigation 

 and with the most liberal allowance for all possible variations, and an 

 unlimited series of ages, they have been found wholly inadequate to the 

 purpose, it would be the height of absurdity to have recourse to any 



