REVIEWS 
SCEPTICISM IN GEOLOGY.* 
T HIS is a well-written little book, and is explanatory of its author’s 
doubts regarding the doctrines of uniformity .and continuity as elaborated 
by Lyell and Geikie. It 11 does not deal with the great and incontrovertible 
truths of Geology, but only with certain excrescences, which aim at proving 
the earth to have been fashioned by mechanical processes still going on.” 
The author anticipates “ rough usage ” from certain quarters, but submits 
that the long array of his facts, together with his answers and objections to 
alleged facts, cannot be refuted. The criticisms of the author relate, he 
states, to u uniformity, or the operation of modern causes ; the elevating 
power of earthquakes ; erosion of rocks by rivers ; unlimited denudation by 
atmospheric denudation, and the antiquity of man on the earth.” He sug- 
gests that a enormous exaggerations have paved the way for erroneous 
conclusions, and that supposed analogy has been mistaken for evidence.” 
After claiming the right to doubt, and stating the value of doubting in 
science, the author informs his readers that he has studied the writings of 
the dominant school, and investigated the earth’s structure in this and other 
countries himself. The liberty of doubting is pleaded for rather unneces- 
sarily, for if any set of men doubt, criticize, and protest against dogmatic 
authority, it is that of the modern school of Geology : and if the author had 
come amongst them, listened to the debates of the Geological Society, and 
read the current literature of the science during the last few years, he 
would have found that most of his crotchets are out of date, and that Lyell 
and Geikie — an antithetic combination of genius and common-place — are 
not so much followed as he imagines. Should he read the address of the 
present President of the Geological Society, he will find therein the gener- 
ally accepted limitation of the Huttonian doctrine, and a protest against 
the dogma that the forces of old acted continuously in the same degree. 
It is not fair on the part of the author to saddle geology with a theory 
because it emanates from a man who has u written a book : ” and if he had 
made the slightest inquiry among the professors of Geology in England, or 
had mixed amongst the rising school, he would have heard such a dictum 
as the following : “ It is evident that the great mountain chains of the 
world are due in the first place to upheaval,” very much derided. The 
* “ Scepticism in Geology.” By Verifier. 8vo. London : John Murray. 
1877. 
