CHAP XI.
THE favour with which geology has been received
into the circle of modern science, is mainly attributable
to its all-pervading and expanded harmony with other
branches of study, with popular sources of intellectual
enjoyment, and important commercial and agricultural
applications. Public taste changes from time to time
its objects of special attention, but not capriciously nor
unjustly; and geology has been advanced rapidly
during the last 10, 20, and 30 years, because its march
had been previously retarded, and because in its progress
all other parts of the great contemplation of
nature were deeply interested. The preceding pages
have given illustration of the real and mutual dependence
of geology, and the parts of human study which
relate to the living forms, habits, and history of plants
and animals,—the energies resident in and acting
among the atoms of matter—the forces which operate
in the air and water above, and in the rocky depths
below the surface of the earth—the constitution and
phenomena of the planets, and the state of the ethereal
spaces in which suns and planets move, at distances
which are beyond expression and conception. Considered
in these aspects, geology is a boundless study;
and yet only the indolent will turn away from its
allurements, since every part of its truths is full of
rare and profitable results.
It is sometimes, not very fairly, objected to modern geology, that the superior accuracy and power of research which it has turned on the ancient mysteries of
