REVIEWS . 
361 
GEOLOGICAL EEROES * 
W E do not often find the sister island producing scientific works of much 
importance. Not that Irishmen are incapable of pursuing the 
higher paths of scientific study, for we find them taking an elevated position 
in all parts of the globe save in their own country. But in Ireland there is 
a lack of encouragement. The scientific institutions are disliked by certain 
sections of both rehgious creeds. Government gives little or no support, 
indeed it seems disposed to check the cultivation of science among Irishmen 
as much as possible. The chair of Zoology, which became vacant in the 
Museum of Industry three years ago, has not yet been filled up ; and the 
professorship of Natural History, vacated some six years ago in Belfast 
Queen’s CoUege, has been amalgamated with that of Geology ; so that the 
present professor, who certainly holds an honourable rank among scientific 
men, and deserves a better status than that accorded to him by a niggard 
ministry, is obliged to lecture upon Zoology, Comparative Anatomy, Botany, 
Geology, Palaeontology, Mineralogy, and Physical Geography. Such is the 
manner in which scientific education is conducted in Ireland under Government 
auspices. If, therefore, as a result, we occasionally observe a most lamentable 
display of ignorance in matters of science, the rulers, and not the people, 
are to blame. Mr. KeUy, a geologist we believe of some local distinction, 
and who occupies the position of vice-president of the Geological Society of 
Dublin — a circumstance upon which we cannot congratulate that association, 
has given us a work of 300 pages, in which he endeavours to prove that the 
modern geological theories are groundless. He has given his book the title 
of ‘‘ Errors of Geology but had he termed it Errors of Geologists, we ap- 
prehend the designation would have been more aptly chosen. We say this 
because we conceive that his own remarks display only too truly how liable 
a shallow mind, trying to reason upon complex natural phenomena, is to fall 
into a method of illogical and hasty induction. The more striking portion of 
Mr. Kelly’s views is that which refers to the origin of sedimentary rocks. It 
is, we may say, universally taught nowadays that the ordinary stratified 
rocks represent the debris of continents ; in fact, are made up of particles of 
matter washed from lands which formerly existed, and carried away into the 
ocean in the form of mud, sand, &c. Mr. Kelly does not admit this. Fuid- 
ing that even in any ordinary arenaceous deposit, the layers are of a different 
nature, that the pebbles form one lamina, and the fine grains another, — he 
conceives that they could not have been derived from the surface of the globe. 
To explain the fact, therefore, he evokes a peculiar hypothesis, viz., that sedi- 
mentary strata are reaUy derived from the interior of the earth. Volcanic 
action commencing, let us say, in the centre of an ocean, causes enormous 
quantities of mineral matter to be belched up ; these, then, falling into the 
water are gradually deposited at the bottom. The difference between the 
beds he accounts for by supposing the volcano to throw out coarse and fine 
* “ Notes on the Errors of Geology, illustrated by reference to facts ob- 
served m Ireland.” By J ohn Kelly, Vice-President of the Eoyal Geological 
Society of Ireland. London : Longman, 1864. 
