the future; but perhaps the greatest lesson which is taught by a careful consideration of the rise and progress of a study is one which has a moral value, for he who pays attention to the growth of his science in past times, gains a reverence for the old masters, and at the same time learns that a slavish regard for authority is a dangerous thing. This is a lesson which is of the utmost importance to the student who wishes to advance his science, and will prevent him from paying too little attention to the work of those who have gone before him, whilst it will enable him to perceive that as great men have fallen into error through not having sufficient data at their disposal, he need not be unduly troubled should he find that conclusions which he has lawfully attained after consideration of evidence unknown to his predecessors clash with those which they adopted. Want of this historic knowledge has no doubt caused many workers to waste their time on work which has already been performed, but it has also led others to withhold important conclusions from their fellow-workers because they were supposed to be heterodox. In an uncertain science like geology one of the great difficulties is to keep an even balance between contempt and undue respect for authority, and assuredly a scientific study of the past history of a science will do much to enable a student to attain this end. It will be useful, therefore, at this point to give a brief account of the rise and progress of the study of stratigraphical geology, so far as that can be done without entering into technical details, at the same time recommending the student to survey the progress of this branch of our science for himself, after he has mastered the principles of the subject, and such details as are the property of all who have studied the science from the various text-books written for advanced students.

William Smith, the 'Father of English Geology,' is rightly regarded as the founder of stratigraphical geology on a true scientific basis, but like all great discoverers, his work was foreshadowed by others, though so dimly, that this does not and cannot detract from his fame. It is desirable, however, to begin our historical review at a time somewhat further back than that at which Smith gave to the world his epoch-making map and memoirs.

Before the eighteenth century, stratigraphical geology cannot be said to have existed as a branch of science—the way had not been prepared for it. Data had been accumulated which would have been invaluable if at the disposal of open-minded philosophers, but with few exceptions prejudice prevented the truth from becoming known. There were two great stumbling-blocks to the establishment of a definite system of stratigraphical geology by the writers of the Middle Ages, firstly, the contention that fossils were not the relics of organisms, and, secondly, when it was conceded that they represented portions of organisms which had once existed, the assertion that they had reached their present positions out of reach of the sea during the Noachian Deluge. For full details concerning the mischievous effects of these tenets upon the science the reader is referred to the luminous sketch of the growth of geology in the first four chapters of Sir Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology.

The disposition of rocks in strata, and the occurrence of different fossils in different strata, was known to Woodward when he published his Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth in 1695, and the valuable collections made by Woodward and now deposited in the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge, show how fully he appreciated the importance of these facts, though he formed very erroneous conclusions from them, owing to the manner in which he drew upon his imagination when facts failed him, maintaining that fossils were deposited in the strata according to their gravity, the heaviest sinking first, and the lightest last, during the time of the universal deluge. The following extracts from Part II. of Woodward's book, show the position in which our knowledge of the strata stood at the end of the seventeenth century: "The Matter, subsiding ..., formed the Strata of Stone, of Marble, of Cole, of Earth, and the rest; of which Strata, lying one upon another, the Terrestrial Globe, or at least as much of it as is ever displayed to view, doth mainly consist.... The Shells of those Cockles, Escalops, Perewinkles, and the rest, which have a greater degree of Gravity, were enclosed and lodged in the Strata of Stone, Marble, and the heavier kinds of Terrestrial Matter: the lighter Shells not sinking down till afterwards, and so falling amongst the lighter Matter, such as Chalk, and the like ... accordingly we now find the lighter kinds of Shells, such as those of the Echini, and the like, very plentifully in Chalk.... Humane Bodies, the Bodies of Quadrupeds, and other Land-Animals, of Birds, of Fishes, both of the Cartilaginous, the Squamose, and Crustaceous kinds; the Bones, Teeth, Horns, and other parts of Beasts, and of Fishes: the Shells of Land-Snails: and the Shells of those River and Sea Shell-Fish that were lighter than Chalk &c. Trees, Shrubs, and all other Vegetables, and the Seeds of them: and that peculiar Terrestrial Matter whereof these consist, and out of which they are all formed, ... were not precipitated till the last, and so lay above all the former, constituting the supreme or outmost Stratum of the Globe.... The said Strata, whether of Stone, of Chalk, of Cole, of Earth, or whatever other Matter they consisted of, lying thus each upon other, were all originally parallel: ... they were plain, eaven, and regular.... After some time the Strata were broken, on all sides of the Globe: ... they were dislocated, and their Situation varied, being elevated in some places, and depressed in others ... the Agent, or force, which effected this Disruption and Dislocation of the Strata, was seated within the Earth."

Woodward's writings no doubt exercised a direct influence on the growth of our subject, but the indirect effects of his munificent bequest to the University of Cambridge and his foundation of the Chair of Geology in that University were even greater, for as will be pointed out in its proper place, two of the occupants of that chair played a considerable part in raising stratigraphical geology to the position which it now occupies.

The discoveries which were made after the publication of Woodward's book and before the appearance of the map and writings of William Smith are given in the memoir of the latter author, written by his nephew, who formerly occupied the Chair of Geology at Oxford[1]. It would appear that the fact that "the strata, considered as definitely extended masses, were arranged one upon another in a certain settled order or series" was first published by John Strachey in the Philosophical Transactions for 1719 and 1725. "In a section he represents, in their true order, chalk, oolites, lias, red marls and coal, and the metalliferous rocks" of Somersetshire, but confines his attention to the rocks of a limited district.

The Rev. John Michell published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1760 an "Essay on the Cause and Phænomena of Earthquakes," but Prof. Phillips gives proofs that Michell, who