Volume 1

Treatise on geology / By John Phillips.

  • Phillips, John, 1800-1874
Date:
1837-1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatise on geology / By John Phillips. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/356 (page 1)
    A TREATISE ON GEOLOGY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE OBJECTS OF GEOLOGICAL SCIENCE_, AND THE MEANS FOR INVESTIGATING AND INTERPRETING THE NATURAL HISTORY OP THE EARTH. 1. Objects of Geological Science. The phenomena of geology are so various and .compli- cated,, that hardly any class of writers has left them vrholly untouched; and the aspect of this science changes according to the peculiar object of different inquirers. Strabo,, accustomed to enlarged views of physical geo- graphy, spoke of the existing forms of the surface of a part of Asia Minor, in reference to the ancient revo- lutions of nature which had occasioned them, and thus appeared to include geology among the tributaries to physical geography. Werner, habituated to minute discrimination of minerals and rocks, regarded the science, whose object it was to propose explanations of these differences, as a branch of mineralogy; while in Hutton’s comprehensive mind geology applied itself to