The Founders of Geology Quotes

“William Nicol was never adequately recognised in his lifetime.”

“The Founders of Geology”

“What seems to be a well-established deduction in one age may be seen to be more or less erroneous in the next.”

“...the permanent vitality of truth. The seed may be long in showing signs of life, but these signs come at last.”

“Let us hold high the torch of science, and pass it on bright and burning to those who shall receive it from our hands.”

“I am afraid that the geologists are about as difficult to move as their own erratic blocks. They took no notice of the possibilities put in their way by William Nicol.”

“Each of us has it in his power to add to this accumulation of knowledge. Careful and accurate observation is always welcome, and may eventually prove of signal importance.”

“In the case of geological literature, a large mass of the writing of the present time is of little or no value for any of the higher purposes of the science, and... it may quite safely and profitably, both as regards time and temper, be left unread.”

“The Wernerians were as certain of the origin and sequence of rocks as if they been present at the formation of the earth's crust. Yet in a few years their notions and overweening confidence became a laughing-stock.”

“While availing ourselves freely of the use of hypothesis as an aid in ascertaining the connection and significance of facts, we must be ever on our guard against premature speculation and theory, clearly distinguishing between what is fact and what may be our own gloss or interpretation of it.”

“It appeared to me that it might be useful to recount the story of a few of the great pioneers during the momentous period... and to show, from their struggles, their failures, and their successes, how geological ideas and theories arose, and were step by step worked out into the forms they now wear.”

“We are warned to be on the lookout for the unrecognized meanings and applications in the work of our own day and in that of older date. We are taught the necessity not only of keeping ourselves abreast of the progress of science at the present time, but also of making ourselves acquainted as far as we possibly can with the labours of our predecessors.”

“From the beginning of its career, geology has owed its foundation and its advance to no select and privileged class. ...No branch of natural knowledge lies more invitingly open to every student who, loving the fresh face of Nature, is willing to train his faculty of observation in the field, and to discipline his mind by the patient correlation of facts and the fearless dissection of theories.”

“When Nicol died, his instruments and preparations passed into the hands of the late Mr. Alexander Bryson of Edinburgh, who... made many additions to the collections which he had acquired. In particluar, he made numerous thin slices of minerals and rocks for the purpose of exhibiting the cavities containing fluid, which had been described long before by David Brewster and Nicol.”

“Sorby... for the first time, showed how, by means of a microscope, it was possible to discover the minute structure and composition of rocks, and to learn much regarding their mode of origin. He took us... into the depths of a volcanic focus, and revealed the manner in which lavas acquire their characters. He carried us still deeper into the terrestrial crust, and laid open the secrets of those profound abysses in which granitic rocks have been prepared.”

“How slowly the key that now unlocks the innermost mysteries of rock-structure was made use of. Five and twenty years after William Nicol had shown how stony substances could be investigated by means of the microscope, before Mr. Sorby called the attention of geologists to the enormous value of the method thus put into their hands.”

“If geologists... could only be brought to realise that the addition of another paper to the swollen flood of our scientific literature involves a serious responsibility; that no man should publish what is not of real consequence, and that his statements should be as clear and condensed as he can make them, what a blessed change would come over the faces of their readers, and how greatly would they conduce to the real advance of science which they wish to serve!”

“I was influenced by my experience of the limited acquaintance with the historical development of the science which has often been shown, even by those who have done good service in enlarging its boundaries. English-speaking geologists have for the most part contented themselves with the excellent, but necessarily brief, summary of the subject given by Lyell in the introductory chapters of his classic Principles, no fuller digest of geological history having been published in their language.”

“It seems to me that one important lesson to be learnt from a review of the successive stages in the foundation and development of geology is the absolute necessity of avoiding dogmatism. Let us remember how often geological theory has altered. The Catastrophists had it all their own way until the Uniformitarians got the upper hand, only to be in turn displaced by the Evolutionists.”

“At last Mr. Henry Clifton Sorby came to Edinburgh, and...was particularly struck with the series of slices illustrating "fluid cavities," and at once saw that the subject was one of which the further prosecution could not fail to "lead to important conclusions in geological theory." He soon... made sections of mica-schist, and... threw his whole energy into the investigation for several years, and produced at last in 1858 the well-known memoir, On the Microscopical Structure of Crystals, which marks one of the most prominent epochs of modern geology.”