PEOCEEDLNGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



engaged in laying the foundation in this country of the study of 

 rocks. 



If now we turn to the second series of our £ Transactions ' and 

 the earlier volumes of our ' Journal,' published between the years 

 1824 and 1858, we shall perceive a startling falling-off in the con- 

 tributions to mineralogical science, too sure a sign of that neglect 

 and almost contempt with which Mineralogy had come to be 

 regarded by the geologists of that period. 



This unfortunate result was doubtless to some extent due to the 

 powerful counter-attraction exercised by Stratigraphical Geology, 

 which had received such a remarkable impetus from the labours of 

 "William Smith, and of Palaeontology, which was daily being enriched 

 by the discoveries of Cuvier, Conybeare. Buckland, Mantell, and 

 Owen. But it must, at the same time, be confessed that many 

 mineralogists had at that period permitted themselves to be betrayed 

 into a position of more or less pronounced antagonism to all the later 

 developments of Geology, and their science in turn had come to be 

 regarded by geologists with feelings of suspicion and distrust. 



Perhaps I cannot better illustrate the relations which had grown 

 up between the geologists and mineralogists of that day than by 

 referring to an incident which was related to me by Charles Darwin, 

 shortly before his death, as having exercised an important influence 

 on his own career as a geologist. While Darwin was a student at 

 Edinburgh, it was the custom of Jameson, who was justly regarded 

 at that time as the apostle of exact mineralogical knowledge in this 

 country, to take his class to Salisbury Crags and there to inveigh 

 in no measured terms against the infatuation of geologists in main- 

 taining the igneous origin of those masses of basalt. Under such 

 ' circumstances as these it is not surprising to find that geologists, 

 judging the tree by its fruits, were led to conclude that from 

 Mineralogy there was little to be hoped for in the way of assistance 

 to their own science, and nothing at all to be feared in the way of 

 criticism. 



Although this state of estrangement between Geology and Mine- 

 ralogy has now happily passed awa}^, since the causes which brought 

 it about have disappeared, it may still be doubted whether all the 

 cultivators of these two sciences fully realize their mutual depend- 

 ence, or clearly recognize their capabilities for mutual assistance. 

 It may not be unprofitable, therefore, to inquire how perfect 

 cooperation between mineralogists and geologists may best be 

 promoted, and to reconnoitre those promising fields of research 

 through which their joint advance must be made. 



