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The Geological and Polytechnic Society of the West- 

 Riding of Yorkshire." In all its transactions it was highly 

 practical. It was one of those institutions designed to 

 ^ bring out scientific principles, and to make them bear on the 

 practical objects connected especially with the commercial 

 and manufacturing interest of the West-Riding of York- 

 shire. As the causes which had very much increased the 

 property of the Riding were connected, not only with manu- 

 factures, but with mining, geology became very important. 

 Every one must be aware who had attended at all to the 

 enterprise of penetrating the surface of the earth, that very 

 large sums had been expended, or rather wasted, by reason 

 of the want of the information which geology could most dis- 

 tinctly have imparted. For though geology, as a science, 

 might be considered imperfect, and ever would be, inasmuch 

 as the distance they could penetrate beneath the surface of 

 the earth must always be an extremely small proportion of the 

 whole, still the knowledge obtained by geology was in many 

 respects perfectly certain ; so that negatively, at least, we 

 could in many instances satisfactorily anticipate what might 

 not exist beneath the surface of the earth. We could not, 

 indeed, in every instance, predict in unexplored parts of the 

 country all that lay hidden beneath the surface : nor, that 

 because the surface might consist of certain strata favourable, 

 for instance, for coal or iron, could we in every case predict 

 with certainty that there must be coal or iron. But we could 

 in very jnany cases predict, from the nature of the surface, 

 and that most positively, that there could not be either coal 

 or iron-stone there. Hence, a mere negative decision by geo- 

 logy, on a question of such interest, became extremely import- 

 ant, as at once setting aside the temptation to useless and ex- 

 pensive enterprise ; and, on the other hand, geology, generally 

 speaking, so far afforded positive knowledge as to show whether 

 such substances as coal might be reasonably expected in any 



