his independence of his Maker seemed about to gain new vigour by acquiring a fresh vantage-ground. The old cry of the eternity of matter, and the 'all things remain as they were from the beginning until now,' rung in my ears. God with us, in the world of science henceforth to be no more! The very evidences of His being seemed about to be removed into a more distant and dimmer region, and a dreary swamp of infidelity spread onwards and backwards throughout the past eternity. Without stopping to inquire whether, although the science of Geology had been revolutionized, those fears were not altogether exaggerated, it is enough at present to know, that as Geology has not been revolutionized, there is no need to entertain the question. I trust I have at least succeeded in furnishing the reader with such references,—few and simple when we once know where to find them,—as may enable him to decide upon this important matter for himself. If I have learned anything in the course of the investigations which I have been endeavouring to make, it is to take nothing upon credence, but to wait patiently for all the evidence which can be brought to bear upon the subject before me; and this, I believe, is the only way to make any approximation to a correct opinion. In truth, the science of Geology is itself in that condition, that no fact ought to be accepted as a basis for reasoning of a solid kind, until it has run the round of investigation by the most competent authorities, and has stood the test of time. It is peculiarly subject to the cry of lo, here! and lo, there! from false and imperfectly informed teachers; and I believe the men most thoroughly to be relied on are those who are the slowest to theorize, the last to form a judgment, and who require the largest amount of evidence before that judgment is finally pronounced. In addition to the inspection of my ever kind and generous friend Mr. Symonds,' I have submitted the following pages to the reading of Mr. Geikie2 of the Geological Survey, who has here and there furnished a note. Of the amount and correctness of his knowledge, acquired chiefly in the field and in the course of his professional duties, my husband had formed the highest opinion. Indeed, I believe he looked upon him as the individual who would most probably be his successor as an exponent of Scottish Geology. One who walks on an average twenty miles per day, and who has submitted nearly every rood of the soil to the accurate inspection demanded by the Survey, must be one whose opinion, in all that pertains to Scottish Geology in especial, must be well worth the having. I have to add an expression of most grateful thanks to Sir Roderick Murchison, for his prompt attention to sundry applications which I was constrained to make to him. His letters have been of the utmost importance in enabling me to perceive clearly the alterations which have taken place in our Scottish Geology, and the reasons for them. One feels instantaneously the benefit of contact with a master-mind. A few sentences, a few strokes of the pen, throw more light on the subject than volumes from an inferior hand. It remains now only to explain that this course of Lectures, as delivered before the Philosophical Institution, consisted 1 The Rev. W. S. Symonds, author of Old Stones, Stones of the Valley, etc., and the compiler of the index to the recent edition of Sir R. Murchison's Siluria. • Archibald Geikie, Esq., author of The Story of a Boulder. of eight, instead of six. Those now published are complete, according to their limits, in all that relates to the facts, literal or picturesque, of the subject; and the last two of the series will be found in The Testimony of the Rocks, under the heads of 'Geology in its Bearing on the Two Theologies,' and 'The Mosaic Vision of Creation.' If it had been within the contemplation of the author to publish the six Lectures as they now stand, these last two would have formed their natural climax or peroration. And, accordingly, I entertained some thought of republishing them here, in order that the reader might enjoy the advantage of having the whole under his eye at once. But as they are not in any way necessary to the completion of the sense, and perhaps Geology, viewed simply by itself, and in the light of a popular study, is as well freed from extraneous matter, it was thought best, on the whole, to refer the reader who wishes to see the eight discourses in their original connexion, to The Testimony of the Rocks. I have, instead, added an Appendix of rather a novel character. In addition to the Cruise of the Betsey, and Ten Thousand Miles over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland, there was left a volume of papers unpublished as a whole, entitled A Tour through the Northern Counties of Scotland. They had, however, been largely drawn upon in various other works; but, scattered throughout, were passages of more or less value which I had not met with elsewhere; and some such, of the descriptive kind, I have culled and arranged as an Appendix ; first, because I was loath that any original observation from that mind which should never think again for the instruction of others should be lost, and also because many of those passages were of a kind which might prove suggestive to the student, and assist him in reasoning upon those phenomena of ordinary occurrence, without close observation of which no one can ever arrive at a successful interpretation of nature. If the reader should descry aught of repetition which has escaped my notice, I must crave his indulgence, in consideration of the very difficult and arduous task which God, in His mysterious providence, has allotted me. To endeavour to do by these writings as my husband himself would if he were yet with us, -to preserve the integrity of the text, and in dealing with what is new, to bring to bear upon it the same unswerving rectitude of purpose in valuing and accepting every iota of truth, whether it can be explained or not, rejecting all that is crude, and abhorring all that is false, this has been my aim, although, alas! too conscious throughout of the comparative feebleness of the powers brought to bear upon it. If, however, the reader is led to inquire for himself, I trust he will find that these powers, such as they are, have been used in no light or frivolous spirit, but with a deep and somewhat of an adequate, sense of the vast importance of the subject. L. M. |