173 
Gi'I’I'Y Rkpkint 
2 
J'age 146 
the human breast and we find the earliest philosophers 
hazarding speculations upon the subject. This desire is 
quite natural, and forms a part of the thirst after knowledge 
which is one of the attributes of human beings. 
Leaving on one side the more or less fanciful geology 
and cosmogony of the ancients, we find that the fir.st deve- 
lopments of geological science were chief!}" confined to the 
.stud}' of the mineralogical and petrological features of the 
earth. The first rude classification of rocks rose out of 
this study ; and the principles upon which that cla.s.sifica- 
tion were based have held sway for a very long time over 
geological science. Accordingly we find that the first 
attempts to classify the rocks of the Caribean area were 
made upon old principles. Nearly every traveller to the 
West-Indies and equinoctial America has had something to 
.say upon the physical structure of this part of the globe. 
The illustrous Humboldt, in his Personal Narrative and 
his Political Essa}' on the Island of Cuba, presents us with 
his observations on the Geology of Venezuela and Cuba. 
He noticed the fos.silferous rocks of Cumana, and put the 
query whether any of their organic contents were identical 
with existing species in the adjoining .seas ; a query an- 
.swered by me in my paper on the Relations of the Tertiar}- 
Formations of the West Indies. 
Among the more noteworthy of Humboldt’s succe.ssor.s in 
this field I may mention the names of Dauxion Lavay.see, 
St. Claire Deville, Nugent, and De la Beche, who have 
written upon the geology of Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica 
and other islands. 
It was not however until the science of Paleontology 
arose that Geology was evolved from the chaos in which it 
had lain previously to the beginning of the present century. 
