4 Froceedings of the Eoyal 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 w^hile 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, we 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 
