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the human breast and we find the earliest philosophers 

 hazarding speculations upon the subject. This desire is 

 quite natural, and forms a part of the thirst after knowledge 

 which is one of the attributes of human beings. 



Leaving on one side the more or less fanciful geology 

 and cosmogony of the ancients, we find that the first deve- 

 lopments of geological science were chiefly confined to the 

 study of the mineralogical and petrological features of the 

 earth. The first rude classification of rocks rose out of 

 this study ; and the principles upon which that classifica- 

 tion were based have held sway for a ver} r long time over 

 geological science. Accordingly we find that the first 

 attempts to classify the rocks of the Caribean area were 

 made upon old principles. Nearly every traveller to the 

 West-Indies and equinoctial America has had something to 

 say upon the physical structure of this part of the globe. 

 The illustrous Humboldt, in his Personal Narrative and 

 his Political Essay on the Island of Cuba, presents us with 

 his observations on the Geology of Venezuela and Cuba. 

 He noticed the fossilferous rocks of Cumana, and put the 

 query whether any of their organic contents were identical 

 with existing species in the adjoining seas ; a query an- 

 swered by me in my paper on the Relations of the Tertiary 

 Formations of the West Indies. 



Among the more noteworthy of Humboldt's successors in 

 this field I may mention the names of Dauxion Lavaysee, 

 St. Claire Deville, Nugent, and De la Beche, who have 

 written upon the geology of Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica 

 and other islands. 



It was not however until the science of Paleontology 

 arose that Geology was evolved from the chaos in which it 

 had lain previously to the beginning of the present century. 



