PRACTICAL BEARINGS OF GEOLOGY.

"UTILITY," says one of the master-minds of Europe, "is the bane of science." 66 Philosophy," says another thinker, "is never more exalted than when she stoops to administer to humanity." Perhaps neither extreme is absolutely correct, and, as in most matters of human concern, truth may be found between. Science, it is true, may be cultivated solely for its own sake, and to a certain class of minds the acquisition of abstract truths-the pure pleasure of knowing-may be sufficient reward. But to another class differently trained, or, it may be, differently constituted, knowledge is of itself nothing unless it can be brought to bear on the pursuits, the toils, and enjoyments of everyday existence. Man is a compound being-compound alike from the individuality he has to sustain and the part he has to perform. Living in a world of incessant activities, his life is not only a continual struggle with external conditions, but a continued investigation of the forces against which he has to contend. He has thus, in virtue of his position, physical wants which cannot possibly be disregarded, and intellectual desires as imperative in their cravings as are those of his bodily requirements. It is apparently the oversight of this fact which makes the philosopher

too often disregard the practical, and the man of practice too commonly undervalue the purely philosophical. Science and its applications cannot be disjoined; industry would be fruitless without knowledge to direct it. Where science seeks merely to know, and industry tries to apply the results of this knowledge, utility can be no bane; and where practice is ready to accept, philosophy may contribute her aid without stooping from the position that becomes her.

Like other branches of knowledge, geology has its scientific as well as its practical aspects. It may be studied from the purely intellectual side; and what a wide field. for investigation, what a rich fund of truth and matter for speculation, it unfolds! It may be viewed from the practical; and what valuable assistance, what trustworthy aid, its deductions afford! What knowledge of deeper interest than that of the nature and history of the globe we inhabit? What study more attractive than to trace this world of ours through all its phases of change and progression, from the earliest fact registered in the rocky crust to the phenomena that are now taking place around us? What more wonderful than to learn that, under the operation of existing forces, sea and land are ever changing places, and that not a particle of matter we now examine but has been wasted and reconstructed times without number-now solved and sundered by water, now melted and reconstructed by fire? What more marvellous than to know that the organic forms which now exist are but the merest fraction of a life-scheme that stretches away immeasurably into the past, and which, stage after stage, has advanced from simpler to more complex forms, and, as a necessity, from the performance of lower to higher and more exalted functions? What more ennobling than the conviction, that amidst all this mutation and progress-these ever-varying aspects and functions-there is a plan and

design to which the whole has ever been conformed, and immutable laws by which the means and processes are ever held in operation and in harmonious adjustment? What more godlike than, from a knowledge of all that this world has been, and from the conviction of all that it will continue to be, to extend our being into the past and into the future, and to live, as it were, far beyond the period of our sentient existence? All knowledge of nature is good, and there is no science, physical or natural, which is not invested with its own special value; but there is none, perhaps, which brings the mind in more immediate contact with God's workings in nature, none that unfolds so broadly the method of the creative mind, as geology; and this knowledge were of itself sufficient to excite our keenest research, and to sustain our most enthusiastic interest.

But beyond this purely scientific interest, the study of geological phenomena stands unexcelled as a means of mental training and exercitation. At every step the most minute and discriminating observation is necessary. Every external feature, every particle of rock, every fragment of fossil plant or animal, carries with it its own history; hence everything in the interpretation of that history depends upon the aptitude to observe and this power to discriminate. How marked the power of the trained observer to perceive minute differences in form and structure compared with that of the unpractised worker; and what endless variety and contrast this power discovers in nature, where to the casual observer there appears nothing save sameness and monotony! Besides this discipline of observation, there is also necessary the tact to describe, for without this the facts and phenomena would in a great measure be lost to others, if, indeed, the faulty description did not often. mislead them. Dealing with such vast and complicated phenomena, the exercise of the reflective faculties is not

less necessary than that of the perceptive. Knowledge of causation, sifting of evidence, balancing of probabilities, and power of generalisation, are never more needed than in dealing with geological phenomena; and he who goes earnestly and truthfully to work can scarcely have a wider and more varied field for their exercise and development.

But, over and above this intellectual exercitation of a general nature, geology has bearings of special importance to the other sciences: to astronomy, as indicating the structure and composition of the planetary brotherhood; to chemistry, as supplying at once new substances for research, and new problems for solution; and, above all, to botany and zoology, as having extended immeasurably their domains, and interwoven more closely their cosmical connections. A century ago the botanist and zoologist dealt only with the existing forms of plants and animals; now their review must embrace the extinct as well as the living, and thus give greater consistency and intelligibility to the scheme of vitality. As the simpler forms of life throw light on the structure of the more complex, so a knowledge of the earlier forms throws light on the relationships of the existing; and henceforth there can be no satisfactory consideration of plant-life or of animal-life that does not combine in one category the extinct with the existing. Attractive as may be the relations of the living economy, they become doubly so when studied in connection with the fossil,-the whole marking a progress in time from the simple to the complex, from the general to the special, and from the merely sentient to the higher attributes of conscious intellect and will. Had geology made no other contribution to science than the revelation of the extinct forms of life, vegetable and animal, that lie entombed in the crust of the globe, it would have been sufficient to invest the study with undying interest, and enough to place it in the foremost rank

of those themes which the enlightened mind delights to investigate.

But, however attractive the scientific or intellectual aspects of geology may be, it has practical interests to attract and substantial benefits to bestow. This globe is our earthly home, and all that confers on it beauty, diversity, and grandeur, is the result of geologic operations. Its soil is the nursing-mother of vegetable life, its surface the theatre of animal activity. Its crust is the vast storehouse of the minerals and metals, those substances so indispensable to civilised power, and without which industrial progress would be impossible. But inasmuch as these rocks and gems and metallic ores are not scattered broadcast through the crust, but hold determinate positions, it is of prime importance to know their place and abundance; and this kind of knowledge can only be ascertained through and by the labours of the geologist. Be it miner in search of coals and metals; builder in quest of durable and beautiful materials; engineer tunnelling and cutting his roads, excavating his canals and harbours, or sinking for water; farmer ameliorating his soils; landscape-gardener beautifying the aspects of his locality; or settler pushing his fortunes in a new country,—all must alike draw on geology for aid, or grope in the dark by the old, unsafe, and expensive system, or rather non-system, of trial and error. Let us try on the present occasion if we can make good these assertions, and meet the objection which is sometimes urged against the study of geology as being a science speculative, hypothetical, and uncertain. And all the more are we called upon to make this effort, from being not unfrequently told that the means for promoting the science would meet with greater support from practical men—that is, from engineers, architects, builders, farmers, and the like, had it any feature of practical importance to recommend it.