between. Miscellaneous heaps of organic remains, collected 
without reference to their geological locality, have no longer 
any beyond an accidental value to the scientific geologist, nor 
can an earnest worker in the broader fields of the science now 
afford to consider the labours of the fossil naturalist as extra- 
neous to his object. They are indissolubly linked together ; 
the evidence afforded by each is indispensable to the other ; and 
though a man may be a geologist without being thoroughly 
versed in palaeontology, yet if he wish to qualify himself for 
work, whether economic or theoretical, that may extend beyond 
the petty details of merely local workings, he will find it needful 
to be acquainted at least with the principles of palaeontology, and 
to familiarize himself with the general groupings of the organic 
forms preserved in the larger subdivisions of the strata that 
form by far the greater proportion of the rocks composing the 
crust of the earth. 
So also in mineralogy, a science that by many has been 
looked on as a mere branch of geology. Viewed in such a light, 
geology being the history of the earth, animate and inanimate, 
we might well ask, how many are the material sciences that do 
not, directly or indirectly, spring therefrom ? No man considers 
comparative anatomy a mere branch of geology. Neverthe- 
less it is an essential ally. So is it with mineralogy, the modern 
progress of which rather throws it into the domain of physics 
and chemistry ; for, though the natural substances with which 
the mineralogist deals all form parts of the crust of the earth, 
they yet include many a form that rarely or never comes under 
the observation of the geologist. Still, the exterior mass of the 
earth being formed of minerals in one state or another, the study 
of mineralogy is indispensable to the geological student. 
The same may be said of chemistry, which now begins to 
throw a little light on some of the more obscure problems of 
geology ; as, for instance, the metamorphism of rocks, and the 
theory of volcanos ; a fine example of which may be cited in the 
beautiful investigations of Professor Bunsen, in Iceland, where 
some of the chemical processes consequent on volcanic action 
may be studied on the spot, thus aiding in the explanation 
of phenomena exhibited in volcanic districts of all geological ages. 
