In the German, considering him as a geologist, the ideal element predominated. That Werner's powers of external discrimination were extremely acute, we have seen in speaking of him as a mineralogist; and his talent and tendency for classifying were, in his mineralogical studies, fully fed by an abundant store of observation; but when he came to apply this methodizing power to geology, the love of system, so fostered, appears to have been too strong for the collection of facts he had to deal with. As we have already said, he promulgated, as representing the world, a scheme collected from a province, and even too hastily gathered from that narrow field. Yet his intense spirit of method in some measure compensated for other deficiencies, and enabled him to give the character of a science to what had been before a collection of miscellaneous phenomena. The ardor of system-making produced a sort of fusion, which, however superficial, served to bind together the mass of incoherent and mixed materials, and thus to form, though by strange and anomalous means, a structure of no small strength and durability, like the ancient vitrified structures which we find in some of our mountain regions.

Of a very different temper and character was William Smith. No literary cultivation of his youth awoke in him the speculative love of symmetry and system; but a singular clearness and precision of the classifying power, which he possessed as a native talent, was exercised and developed by exactly those geological facts among which his philosophical task lay. Some of the advances which he made, had, as we have seen, been at least entered upon by others who preceded him but of all this he was ignorant; and, perhaps, went on more steadily and eagerly to work out his own ideas, from the persuasion that they were entirely his own. At a later period of his life, he himself published an account of the views which had animated him in his earlier progress. In this account" he dates his attempts to discriminate and connect strata from the year 1790, at which time he was twenty years old. In 1792, he "had considered how he could best represent the order of superposition-continuity of course-and general eastern declination of the strata." Soon after, doubts which had arisen were removed by the "discovery of a mode of identifying the strata by the organized fossils respectively imbedded therein.” And thus stored with ideas," as he expresses himself, he began to communicate them to his friends. In all this, we see great vividness

53 Phil. Mag. 1833, vol. i. p. 38.

of thought and activity of mind, unfolding itself exactly in proportion to the facts with which it had to deal. We are reminded of that cyclopean architecture in which each stone, as it occurs, is, with wonderful ingenuity, and with the least possible alteration of its form. shaped so as to fit its place in a solid and lasting edifice.

Different yet again was the character (as a geological discoverer) of the great naturalist of the beginning of the nineteenth century. In that part of his labors of which we have now to speak, Cuvier's dominant ideas were rather physiological than geological. In his views of past physical changes, he did not seek to include any ranges of facts which lay much beyond the narrow field of the Paris basin. But his sagacity in applying his own great principle of the Conditions of Existence, gave him a peculiar and unparalleled power in interpreting the most imperfect fossil records of extinct anatomy. In the constitution of his mind, all philosophical endowments were so admirably developed and disciplined, that it was difficult to say, whether more of his power was due to genius or to culture. The talent of classifying which he exercised in geology, was the result of the most complete knowledge and skill in zoology; while his views concerning the revolutions which had taken place in the organic and inorganic world, were in no small degree aided by an extraordinary command of historical and other literature. His guiding ideas had been formed, his facts had been studied, by the assistance of all the sciences which could be made to bear upon them. In his geological labors we seem to see some beautiful temple, not only firm and fair in itself, but decorated with sculpture and painting, and rich in all that art and labor, memory and imagination, can contribute to its beauty.

[2nd Ed.] [Sir Charles Lyell (B. i. c. iv.) has quoted with approval what I have elsewhere said, that the advancement of three of the main divisions of geology in the beginning of the present century was promoted principally by the three great nations of Europe,-the German, the English, and the French :-Mineralogical Geology by the German school of Werner :-Secondary Geology by Smith and his English successors;-Tertiary Geology by Cuvier and his fellow-laborers in France.]

CHAPTER III.

SEQUEL TO THE FORMATION OF SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTIVE GEOLOGY.

IF.

Sect. 1.-Reception and Diffusion of Systematic Geology.

[F our nearness to the time of the discoveries to which we have just referred, embarrasses us in speaking of their authors, it makes it still more difficult to narrate the reception with which these discoveries met. Yet here we may notice a few facts which may not be without their interest.

The impression which Werner made upon his hearers was very strong; and, as we have already said, disciples were gathered to his school from every country, and then went forward into all parts of the world, animated by the views which they had caught from him. We may say of him, as has been so wisely said of a philosopher of a very different kind,1 “He owed his influence to various causes; at the head of which may be placed that genius for system, which, though it cramps the growth of knowledge, perhaps finally atones for that mischief by the zeal and activity which it rouses among followers and opponents, who discover truth by accident, when in pursuit of weapons for their warfare." The list of Werner's pupils for a considerable period included most of the principal geologists of Europe; Freisleben, Mohs, Esmark, d'Andrada, Raumer, Engelhart, Charpentier, Brocchi. Alexander von Humboldt and Leopold von Buch went forth from his school to observe America and Siberia, the Isles of the Atlantic, and the coast of Norway. Professor Jameson established at Edinburgh a Wernerian Society; and his lecture-room became a second centre of Wernerian doctrines, whence proceeded many zealous geological observers; among these we may mention as one of the most distinguished, M. Ami Boué, though, like several others, he soon cast away the peculiar opinions of the Wernerian school. The classifications of this school were, however, diffused over the civilized world wit' ex

1 Mackintosh on Hobbes, Dissert. p. 177.

traordinary success; and were looked upon with great respect, till the study of organic fossils threw them into the shade.

Smith, on the other hand, long pursued his own thoughts without aid and without sympathy. About 1799 he became acquainted with a few gentlemen (Dr. Anderson, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Townsend, and Mr. Davies), who had already given some attention to organic fossils, and who were astonished to find his knowledge so much more exact and extensive than their own. From this time he conceived the intention of publishing his discoveries; but the want of literary leisure and habits long prevented him. His knowledge was orally communicated without reserve to many persons; and thus gradually and insensibly became part of the public stock. When this diffusion of his views had gone on for some time, his friends began to complain that the author of them was deprived of his well-merited share of fame. His delay in publication made it difficult to remedy this wrong; for soon after he published his Geological Map of England, another appeared, founded upon separate observations; and though, perhaps, not quite independent of his, yet in many respects much more detailed and correct. Thus, though his general ideas obtained universal currency, he did not assume his due prominence as a geologist In 1818, a generous attempt was made to direct a proper degree of public gratitude to him, in an article in the Edinburgh Review, the production of Dr. Fitton, a distinguished English geologist. And when the eminent philosopher, Wollaston, had bequeathed to the Geological Society of London a fund from which a gold medal was to be awarded to geological services, the first of such medals was, in 1831, "given to Mr. William Smith, in consideration of his being a great original discoverer in English geology; and especially for his having been the first in this country to discover and to teach the identification of strata, and to determine their succession by means of their imbedded fossils." Cuvier's discoveries, on the other hand, both from the high philosophic fame of their author, and from their intrinsic importance, arrested at once the attention of scientific Europe; and, notwithstanding the undoubted priority of Smith's labors, for a long time were looked upon as the starting-point of our knowledge of organic fossils. And, in reality, although Cuvier's memoirs derived the greatest part of their value from his zoological conclusions, they reflected back no small portion of interest on the classifications of strata which were involved in his inferences. And the views which he presented gave to geology an attractive and striking character, and a connexion with

large physiological as well as physical principles, which added incomparably to its dignity and charm.

In tracing the reception and diffusion of doctrines such as those of Smith and Cuvier, we ought not to omit to notice more especially the formation and history of the Geological Society of London, just mentioned. It was established in 1807, with a view to multiply and record observations, and patiently to await the result of some future period; that is, its founders resolved to apply themselves to Descriptive Geology, thinking the time not come for that theoretical geology which had then long fired the controversial ardor of Neptunists and Plutonists. The first volume of the Transactions of this society was published in 1811. The greater part of the contents of this volume savor of the notions of the Wernerian school; and there are papers on some of the districts in England most rich in fossils, which Mr. Conybeare says, well exhibit the low state of secondary geology at that period. But a paper by Mr. Parkinson refers to the discoveries both of Smith and of Cuvier; and in the next volume, Mr. Webster gives an account of the Isle of Wight, following the admirable model of Cuvier and Brongniart's account of the Paris basin. "If we compare this memoir of Mr. Webster with the preceding one of Dr. Berger (also of the Isle of Wight), they at once show themselves to belong to two very distinct eras of science; and it is difficult to believe that the interval which elapsed between their respective publication was only three or four years."

Among the events belonging to the diffusion of sound geological views in this country, we may notice the publication of a little volume entitled, The Geology of England and Wales, by Mr. Conybeare and Mr. Phillips, in 1821; an event far more important than, from the modest form and character of the work, it might at first sight appear. By describing in detail the geological structure and circumstances of England (at least as far downwards as the coal), it enabled a very wide class of readers to understand and verify the classifications which geology had then very recently established; while the extensive knowledge and philosophical spirit of Mr. Conybeare rendered it, under the guise of a topographical enumeration, in reality a profound and instructive scientific treatise. The vast impulse which it gave to the study of sound descriptive geology was felt and acknowledged in other countries, as well as in Britain.

2

Conybeare, Report. Brit. Assoc. p. 372.

Conybeare, Report, p. 372.