Geology as a means of culture — A. Wine hell. iir 
earth's general mass; the greatest possible altitude of mountains p. 
the sub-meridional direction of mountain chains; the sufficiency 
of mountain-wrinkles for the total of mountain folds; the exist- 
ence and position of a zone of no stress in the crust of a cooling 
planet. Then in that higher range of geological investigation, 
which may be styled comparative geology, or an application of 
the doctrines of geology to the conditions and histories of other 
planets, we find many uses for mathematical methods; as in the 
study of the moon's atmosphere, and her general physical con- 
dition; the conditions of Jupiter, and of Saturn and Uranus, and 
the light they throw on past and future conditions of our own 
planet. 
Without the application of mathematical analysis, the general 
processes of deductive reasoning from the principle of a cooling 
world, afford, as I have shown, large and valuable exercise for 
the higher intelligence. It is a regal power by which we ex- 
plore in thought the distant ages of terrestrial history which 
elapsed before even the race of man existed, or the icons of 
cosmic vicissitudes undergone before even the world had ex- 
istence. It is a regal power by which we may stand here 
and glance down through the aeons of terrestrial changes- 
yet future. The past has been real, but the future is unen- 
acted. The intellectual eye, through the telescope of geol- 
ogy, pierces through all potentiality. It is prophetic. It en- 
ables us to live alike in the aeons of the past and the aeons of 
the future. It confers on us a limited omnipresence and omni- 
potence. No enlightened man can possibly deny that such ex- 
ercises of mind are lofty, noble, cultural ^cultural and improving 
to an extent scarcely paralleled in the circle of human thoughts 
There are those — among them a few geologists — who affirm 
that these lofty deductive reasonings are little more than flights 
of the imagination, and that the results do not belong to the 
body of recognized science. These men conceive geology as 
properly restricted to its body of facts and generalizations. It 
is easy to show that such a dogma is impossible of observance^ 
and is violated daily even by those who acknowledge only- pos- 
itive geology. But a thoughtful consideration of the mode of 
evolution of our grand deductive conclusions will show that 
they are reasoned ot^^, not imagined. The difference between a 
