WAYSIDE NOTES. 
313 
Pennine upheaval was entirely pre-Permian. On this subject 
I may possibly have more to say to you later on in the 
session. 
You may now feel inclined to ask, What is the use of all 
this ? How can a knowledge of the distribution of land and 
water in a period removed from our day by perhaps millions 
of years, be of more material service to the human race than, 
say, a knowledge of the conformation of the continents of 
Jupiter and Saturn ? I would answer that these are all 
subjects well within the legitimate aim of science, and that 
her votaries need seldom trouble themselves about the 
ultimate utility of their discoveries. Let but the work be 
good, thorough, and honest, no matter whether it be on the 
structure of the mountains of the moon, the internal economv 
of a cockroach, or the optical effects of a crystal, the worker 
may be well assured that his hardly-earned knowledge will 
some day be put to good account; and in pursuing knowledge 
for its own sake he has his immediate reward in the ever- 
enlarging views of the universe and of its great Designer, 
which are engendered by constant and loving communion 
with Nature. 
It would not, however, be difficult to show a great and 
immediate advantage to be derived from such enquiries as 
we have been making to-night, an advantage which I think 
would satisfy even the most persistent of Utilitarians ; for it 
is evident that upon an accurate knowledge of the original 
extent and present limits of the various members of the great 
Carboniferous series of rocks must depend the proper direction 
of capital in the exploration of the vast mineral wealth they 
contain, and upon which the material prosperity of our 
country so largely depends. 
The Doctrine of Evolution.— In the “Midland Naturalist” for 
September, 1887, a letter appeared from Mons. James Grosclande, C.E., 
of Paris, to Mr. W. R. Hughes, F.L.S., President of the Sociological 
Section of the Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical 
Society. It contained the particulars of the formation of a society 
in Paris for the study of the Doctrine of Evolution and the Science 
of Society, as set forth in the Synthetic Philosophy of Mr. Herbert 
Spencer. After an interval of fifteen months a further communica¬ 
tion has been received, bringing news that the society is in a 
