gized, in a work which will ever be dear to geologists.* It is impossible to look over the Transactions of the Geological Society of London, without being struck with the enterprising and persevering spirit of the British geologists. Russia, Germany, Italy, and France, successfully illustrated by the voluntary labours of Buckland, Murchison, Lyell, Stokes, Sedgewick, Fitton, Warburton, Webster, and a host of names which give a moral strength to that society, which will be more and more felt every year in every part of Christendom. We have had the satisfaction of being present at the sittings of the society, and we consider the manner of conducting their discussions, admirably conducive to instruction. When a memoir is read by one of the secretaries, the topographical and geological illustrations are exhibited, and the rocks and organic remains laid on the table. The memoir being finished, the president calls for observations upon it. Observations are made by one or more of the leading members-it is attacked and defended, warily, but sometimes zealously. The disputants feel all the importance of an acute and vigilant audience; every one who takes the floor, knows that he is to be marked "an creta an carbone." There discussions are warmest between the most cordial friends, and strangers have sometimes thought they were carried on at the expense of friendship-but the members have the wisdom to make the geological society a school of mutual instruction. As men, there is not a band of firmer friends in the world; as geologists, they sometimes take different roads in the pursuit of truth. The fluvialists and diluvialists, of whose opinions we purpose to speak, have divided that society at the present stage of geological knowledge. When a compromise of these opinions shall take place, the restless activity of geological inquiry will again divide them, and the rich product of truth will again be found, as the most valuable metallic masses are, at the confluence of the lodes. Our object being to offer a model of proceedings for the societies devoted to natural history in this country, it may be interesting to state, that these discussions being terminated, it is usual for the presiding officer of that society, to sum up the evidences, pro et con, in a concise and luminous manner; adding his own opinion to the mass of evidence brought forward. The memoir, if it is an important one, is then consigned to a committee, whose business is to prune it and trim it, preparatorily to publication in the Transactions of the society. These meetings, which are held once a fortnight, from November to May inclusive, not only add immense masses to the already known, but bring out the salient parts of the terra incognita of geology. * Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales. Conybeare & Phillips. Introduction. p. 14, 1822. During the summer season, some of the members hie to France, some to Germany, to Italy, to renew their investigations, and return again in November, with their rich stores of practical information. The questio vexata is taken up again, and perhaps settled-and thus the whole fabric is annually enlarged and strengthened-the asperities and difficulties of science softened down and removed, and all the elements of knowledge harmoniously adjusted into their approved places. Independent of their Transactions, an abstract is published for the use of the members, under the head of "Proceedings of the Geological Society of London." In this, the principal heads of the memoirs read and discussed at the meetings, are ably put forth, and we have never scen any thing more convenient or instructive than these abstracts, several of which are now before us. When we cast our reluctant eyes upon the state of geological knowledge in our own country, and observe the total want of combination of talent for the illustration of this great subject; we feel, as every ardent naturalist must, depressed in spirit, while we see the rich resources of this extensive country laying dormant upon our hands, and the period deferred, perhaps, beyond that of our own existence, at which the value of geological knowledge will be properly felt amongst us; in a country, too, to which that kind of knowledge is of more importance than to any other-not in relation to its mineral and vendible products, but to the influence which natural knowledge has upon society, -above all, a society framed like ours, which will be best defended from the dangers of its own institutions, by an equality in intellectual attainments. If a good elementary work, on the theory of husbandry, were introduced into our common schools, it would set thousands of ingenious and clever boys thinking. The admixture of soils, the application of manures, the spreading of sea-shells upon the sandy fields, the effects produced by doses of lime in the tenacious clays; all these our farmers are familiar with-they see, but they know not-they stand upon the very threshold of the temple of knowledge; it is the duty of a government to remove the film from before their eyes, that they may enter, and partake cheerfully and fearlessly, of the bounties and glories of nature. If that very great difficulty, want of combination of talent, could be obviated; if the naturalists of this country, few in number, but some of them very able men, could be united; some front could be made against the degenerate taste of the day for factious politics. But here the irremediable cause of our ignorance breaks in upon us, and we have no sooner seen it, than we feel we must, at least we of the present generation, submit to its influence. We have no leisure. All the other classes, in short, are struggling for existence; all their time is absorbed in their essential duties; and the few exceptions amongst us, occupying a more favourable position, have difficulties of another kind to contend with. In England, the field is occupied by men of education and fortune; they have wealth, and they seek for noble modes of expending it. Every considerable town has its Geological Society, every district has been examined, many of them admirably and splendidly described, as Mantell's Sussex, &c. &c. Geology has become a sort of free-masonry in that country, which affords, likewise, facilities of travelling beyond any country in the world. We mean geological travelling, by land. We travel here in an extraordinary manner, but we cannot geologize in steam-boats. The same advantages present themselves to a certain extent on the continent, But how is it with us,-and what is it that the poor solitary geologist has to do here? He is alone, he has to explore a country yet in its infancy, and of which all the presentations as yet are natural ones, for art has done little to assist investigation. Our coal measures have, it is true, been a little worked, and the valuable marls of New-Jersey have put us in possession of some interesting fragments of saurians. But in the interior, wood is so abundant for constructive purposes, that few quarries have been worked. In Europe, a geologist, if he has no previous mineral information of a district, goes immediately to the quarries, and soon finds out where he is, by the silent but expressive language of the fossils. Here, too, our flat coast is not embellished by those bold mural sections which adorn the English shores. The occasional escarpments which are found in the interior, the divisions of beds, which the ravines present, all of which are so instructive, must be visited at great personal inconveniences. And even where the ardour of pursuit encourages the geologist almost beyond the verge of society and necessary comforts, he has to contend, in the summer, with insufferable heats, and in the winter, with every inclemency of a rigorous climate. The transition between these extremes, is of very short duration. But this is not all. He must go alone, and remain alone. Geology has no commonwealth of its own here. The admirers and cultivators of natural history, are, after all, but few in number, and are almost universally prevented, by personal occupations, in a country where every man is actively occupied, from contributing largely to any of those branches of science, which only flourish where wealth and leisure assert their influence. In such a state of things, it is evident that the detailed development of North American geology, would require from an individual the entire devotion of his means, health, and life, in order to satisfy, even in a moderate degree, his own judgment of what is due to the importance of the subject. We cannot reasonably expect so great a sacrifice from any one. We should be unjust to some of those intelligent friends, if we were not to speak in terms of great admiration of the many valuable details, which, notwithstanding all the disadvantages alluded to, some ardent, and original, and accurate minds have produced, and which are to be found in the proceedings of the several learned societies amongst us. We have all the materials-we have a magnificent country, rich in mineral and organic treasures; our recent zoology and botany are ample and inviting; our formations are objects of deep interest to those who know how to value them; and the deposites and sections of the surface of our part of the globe are upon such a mighty scale, that it is in this country the highest branches of sedimental geology should be studied. But we have no leisure. Feelingly alive as an ardent geologist must be to this subject, and continually oppressed by the inconveniences which meet him at every step, we confess, notwithstanding, that we are happy in the belief, that geology will at no very distant day assert its importance, as it has already done in so remarkable a manner in Europe. But, it is due to our readers, many of whom have probably not turned their attention to the increasing importance of this science, that we explain what there is about it to invest it with such supposed future influences upon society. And we have said too much upon this subject, to stand justified with them, if we were to omit to place it in a proper point of view. Our object is, not so much to exalt a favourite science, as to show our fellow creatures how pleasing and how profitable science is. The progress which geology has made within the last thirty. years has been very rapid-but this is an age of wonders. The early history of the science is curious, yet we shall resist the temptation of giving a detailed abstract of it. Organic remains in the rocks, volcanos, and other geological phenomena, had attracted the attention of Herodotus, Pliny, Aristotle, Lucretius, Seneca, &c. Ovid had much sounder geological ideas, than many writers who lived 1700 years after his time.— "Vidi factas ex æquore terras, Et procul a pelago concha jacuere marina." Up to the close of the sixteenth century, the physical notices connected with natural history are vague, and have not been useful to science. At its close, George Owen, an Englishman, first pointed out the very extensive scale upon which the mineral beds succeed to each other, in what is now called the geological series. Burnet, who amused the world during the seventeenth century, never saw Owen's manuscript, or he would probably not have written so much showy nonsense. Woodward is much respected by modern geologists. He founded a chair at Cambridge, now filled by one of the most original thinkers of the age, the Rev. Adam Sedgewick, at this time president of the Geological Society of London. Lister, in 1684, proposed regular geological maps; a proposition implying just views, and far beyond the supposed state, at that day, of geological knowledge. Ere the eighteenth century was much advanced, the elements were rapidly accumulating, and gravitating towards each other. The splendid imaginations of Buffon, perhaps, arrested for a moment the concentration to which these elements were tending, but in another point of view they were serviceable. The brilliant sky-rockets he sent up, at least set people thinking about the importance of the fête they were intended to celebrate. Lehman, in 1756, pointed out the distinction between the inferior rocks, and those which have been since called secondary; but he had a limited field of observation, and a very local geological mind. There is a paper in the Philosophical Transactions, by the Rev. J. Mitchell, which will surprise every one whose taste is that way;-it is on the cause of earthquakes. His admirable reasonings and illustrations, will be found interesting in a particular manner to American readers, since many of them are derived from their own country. In due course of time, Hutton and Werner appeared. Their disciples have been contending for the last thirty years; but the contest is now over. The doctrines of Werner, who thought water a specific for every thing, are now entirely disregarded in Europe; and, from some recent demonstrations, we perceive the religion of the Fire King is likely to take root even at New-Haven, Connecticut. Huttonian philosophy, divested of a little ultraism, is certainly going the geological rounds at this day. We are sure that many of our readers will be grateful to us for refreshing their memories with an abstract of the theories of these celebrated men; and as our object is to attract the attention of all, to the most attractive (in our opinion) of all studies, we shall find it necessary to allude occasionally to the elementary conditions of the science, in order to a perfect understanding of this paper. The theories we have just alluded to, are, however, not to be classed with the bold and fanciful inventions of Burnet and Buffon. Those writers, without the aid of the known, ventured, unaided by any thing but a brilliant imagination, upon the unknown. The Baconian method was neglected by those philosophers; and their sublime fancies, unsupported by facts, have, as is usual with sublimated thoughts, already evaporated into thin air. When, in 1787 and in 1788, Werner and Hutton published their opinions, the first in his "Kurze Klassification," the second in his "Theory of the Earth," the mineral |