184 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCKLAND. 
[CH. VII 
a technical college, where students are trained in mining 
and assaying. The necessity for such an institution 
became every day more apparent. 
It was not long before his persistent efforts were re¬ 
warded. He was able to announce to the Geological 
Society that he and his friends had obtained the co¬ 
operation of the Departments of Woods and Forests and 
of the Ordnance, of the British Museum, of the Institute 
of Civil Engineers, and of the British Association, “ in 
furthering and advancing the knowledge of the structure 
of the earth.” He had made out a strong case in favour 
of such a school when he insisted on 
“ the pecuniary value and statistical utility of geological 
investigations in directing the researches of industry to 
those points where they may be profitably applied, and 
in preventing such large expenditures of capital as, under 
ignorance of the internal structure of the earth and the 
peculiar productions of such geological formation, we have 
in times past seen thrown away in ruinous searches after 
coal, when the slightest knowledge of geology would have 
given information that no coal could possibly be found. 
Never more shall we witness a recurrence of such un¬ 
pardonable waste of public money as that which is said 
to have been lavished in sending lime from Plymouth 
to build the fortress of Gibraltar, on a rock exclusively 
composed of limestone.” 
The projected School of Mines was also to serve as a 
Museum, in which might be exhibited specimens of the 
various stones, marbles, and granite which were employed 
both at home and abroad in building. Buckland had 
already collected similar samples in the Oxford Museum, 
in order that ocular demonstration might afford to architects 
