4 Proceedings of the Boyal Physical Society. 



of the geological curriculum, was the very early introduction 

 of the elaborate and abstruse methods of crystallography. 

 This section of mineralogy was principally studied in Ger- 

 many, where Mohs and Haidinger rank as its most dis- 

 tinguished cultivators, and to whose labours we owe the 

 best treatises on crystallography. But while they were 

 measuring minute angles, and carefully comparing them 

 with the analysis of the chemist, they had seemingly no 

 interest in the questions which are asked at this time, How 

 were these minerals imported, if I may use the term, into 

 those rocks, which are the peculiar study of the dynamic 

 geologist ? The mineralogists hence became mere collec- 

 tors of rare specimens, boasting themselves of the possession 

 of one or more rarities, quite forgetting that the analysis 

 and structure of these precious things were connected inti- 

 mately with the theory of the rock masses in which they 

 were found embedded. 



Another cause is not difficult to trace in regard to the 

 obstinate rejection of mineralogy by the Nestors of English 

 geology. They mostly took up the subject late in life, 

 without any initiation into the relations of minerals to rocks, 

 and finding that they were acquiring fame and honours by 

 the mere study of superposition, as indicated by palaeon- 

 tology, have devoted all their labours to this branch of the 

 subject. They have, indeed, been fortunate in the selection 

 of their coadjutors : Owen and Huxley, as comparative 

 anatomists, Brown and Brongniart as fossil phytologists, 

 Sowerby, and Morris, and Davidson, have done good service 

 as conchologists, while Bowerbank and the lamented Pro- 

 fessor Quekett have added many new facts to microscopic 

 palaeontology. Nor ought we to forget what Hopkins, 

 Phillip, and Symonds have done in the dynamics of geo- 

 logy. 



But while we have seen great and good work done by all 

 these able men, and many more we could name, w r e have 

 very few who are striving to unite the great sections of the 

 science of mineralogy with geology proper. Yet the day seems 

 dawning when we may expect rich fruits from this hitherto 

 uncultivated field. I shall now endeavour to show shortly 



