REPORT ON GEOLOGY. 
365 
of furniture, and has no more right to be considered as any¬ 
thing pertaining to science, than a curious china tea-cup on a 
chimney-piece:—given up to the mercy of the philosopher, 
there is no possibility of determining what valuable information 
it may not convey,—what grand series of truths it may not 
originate or establish. 
Report on the Progress^ Actual State , and Ulterior Prospects 
of Geological Science. By the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, 
F.R.S. V.P.G.S. Corr. Memh. Institute of France , Sfc. 
Sfc. Sfc. 
It cannot be necessary, before an assembly like the present, to 
expatiate on the interest of the science to which I have now r to 
call your attention : a science which by investigating the traces 
indelibly impressed on the surface of our planet by the suc¬ 
cessive revolutions it has undergone, proposes to elucidate the 
history of these stupendous physical actions ; and thus fully to 
develop w r hat may be termed the archgeology of the globe 
itself,—a science which associating itself to those branches of our 
knowledge which relate to organized nature, to zoology, and to 
botany, affords to each the important supplementary information 
of numerous species which have long vanished from the actual 
order of things ;—thus unexpectedly extending our views of the 
various combinations of organic forms; and in many instances 
supplying links, otherwise wanting, in uniting the different terms 
of this series in a continuous and unbroken chain. 
Nor, if from these higher views of scientific interest we ad¬ 
vert to the more practical considerations of utilitarian import¬ 
ance, and applicability to those oeconomical arts on which our 
national wealth and strength depend, can we think meanly of a 
science which guides us in the full development of our mineral 
resources ; which, (to mention only a single instance,) in indi¬ 
cating the proper line in which researches for coal may offer the 
prospect of success, extends, facilitates, and oeconomizes the 
supply of this article, the great element not only of domestic 
comfort, but of mechanical power. 
In tracing the progressive development of this science, it 
might have been interesting, had the bounds necessarily pre¬ 
scribed by an occasion like the present permitted, to have com¬ 
menced our examination with the records of classical antiquity. 
We might have noticed the apparent connexion of many of the 
