Edinburgh Geological Society

Downloaded from http://trned.lyellcollection.org/ at University of Georgia on June 21, 2015 TRANSACTIONS OF THE EDINBURGH GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, SESSION 1882-83. I.—Inaugural Address, Session 1882-83. Ey RALPH RICHARDSON, W.S., F.R.S.E., Vice-President (Read ] 6th November 18S2.) GENTLEMEN,—We are met to-night once more to celebrate the Anniversary of our Society. It was founded so long ago as 1834 by a band of enthusiastic Huttonians. As you are aware, there was once a stout strife in the geological world between the followers of the German geologist Werner, and those of the Scottish geologist Hutton. Werner and his able disciple, Prof, Jameson of Edinburgh, gave the peculiar ideas of their school world-wide celebrity for a time. But our distinguished fellow citizen, James Hutton, proved by the study of the rocks of this very locality, that the doctrines of Werner were, in many instances, erroneous. The battle, as I have said, waged loud and long, but at last Hutton and the Huttonians remained masters of the field. The once flourishing Wernerian Society of Edinburgh drooped and died; and the Edinburgh Geological Society, founded by some of the victorious Huttonians, was called into being in ] 834, and has flourished ever since. I need only point to the work done by our Society during the past session to prove that it is in a healthy and flourishing con dition. It fulfilled, during last session, the three functions which I consider every healthy Geological Society should perform, viz., 1st. It held frequent Meetings for the reading of papers and the discussion of geological topics. 2d. It published Transactions containing most of the papers read at these Meetings ; and VOL. IV. PART in. R Downloaded from http://trned.lyellcollection.org/ at University of Georgia on June 21, 2015 246 EDINBURGH GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 3d. It took part in numerous Field Excursions to districts of geological interest, which were carefully examined under the guidance of competent leaders. All this our Society has done ; but let it never forget to award a due meed of applause to its able, energetic, and painstaking secretary, Mr Ivison Macadam, who has truly been the main spring of the Society, and to whom I am sure you will allow me to take this opportunity of expressing the hearty thanks of the Society for his devotion to its interests during the past year. Permit me now to proceed with my inaugural address. I have taken a subject familiar to you all, and abundantly illus trated by the rocks of our own district. I have linked with that subject the name of its greatest exponent, a name honoured and revered by every student of science. Thanks to James Hutton, the solid rocks which form the frame-work of the globe had been classified and arranged. Their aqueous or igneous origin had been recognised ; their frac tures, faults, synclines, and anticlines had been studied and understood. There still remained, however, a wide field for exploration, and no light for long illuminated it. What were men to make of that vast accumulation of clay, sand, gravel, and rock debris which lay upon the solid strata of the globe, and in many places obscured these strata entirely from view ? This huge mass of loose and evidently travelled material puzzled and amazed humanity. Unscientific persons of course lent their aid in solving the riddle. They said it was the remains of the Noachian Deluge. Geologists had nothing to say, so did not controvert the others. Consequently the great superficial mass acquired the name of Diluvium, that is to say, the result of water sweeping the earth, and leaving a sad jumble of clay, sand, gravel, and rock debris behind. The unscientific theory thus advanced gave an immense importance to the Noachian Deluge, for it carried it to almost every man's door, as, according to this theory, he could see the effects of the Deluge all around him.* But a young Swiss naturalist proved this theory to be all wrong. British geologists had not the advantages of study which he enjoyed. They had not glaciers in their country. They could not see and study the effect of the passage of ice over rocks," and they could not realise the motive power of ice. Certainly they had come veiy near the truth. Our great fellow citizen, Playfair, in his " Illustra tions of the Huttonian Theory," had so long ago as 1802 pointed * Mr Milne-Home mentions in his valuable book on " Ancient Water Levels " (1882, p. 76), that, within a very recent period, an English gentleman, observing immense beds of stratified sand and gravel at the height of 1190 feet on a Scottish hill, exclaimed, " Surely Noah's flooj. has been up here! " Downloaded from http://trned.lyellcollection.org/ at University of Georgia on June 21, 2015 AGASSIZ AND GLACIAL GEOLOGY. 247 out that glaciers are by far the most powerful engines which Nature employs for the moving of large masses of rock. But this was only an isolated passage in the Scottish philosopher's work, a mere obiter dictum, and although highly creditable to his perception, led to no important result. The world waited for a man to unfold the mystery of its superficial geology, and in Agassiz it found him. Louis John Rudolph Agassiz was born in the parish of Mottier, near Lake Neuclmtel in Switzerland, on 28th May 1807. " He was," says the Rev. Dr Rufus Stebbins, "of Hugue not descent, and his ancestors were driven from France by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. For six generations his lineal ancestors had been clergymen."* Throughout his whole life he retained a firm belief in the revelations of Christianity, and, like Hutton, his greatest satisfaction in his scientific researches was to discover anything calculated to impress upon humanity more clearly the greatness and goodness of God. His turn for natural history was early exhibited at the elementary school of Bienne, where he observed the habits of fishes and collected insects. He entered the University of Lausanne at the early age of fifteen, or one year older than the age at which Hutton entered the University of Edinburgh. After studying for two'years at Lausanne, he went to Zurich to study medicine. At the age of nineteen he entered the University of Heidelberg, and studied under celebrated professors, anatomy, physiology, zoology, and botany. Like Hutton, he was destined for the medical profession, but, like him, he was too restless to settle down to practise. He went to the University of Munich, after being only a year at Heidelberg, and he remained there for four years, attaining great distinction by his researches. In particu lar, his first work, a folio in Latin on the classification of the fishes of Brazil, a country which he was destined to visit at the height of his fame many years later, gained him great celebrity. He graduated doctor of philosophy at the University of Erlangen, and doctor of medicine at the University of Munich, and devoted himself heart and soul to scientific research. No one could be more energetic, brilliant, or painstaking in his observations, and as a result he rapidly won a foremost placi among the men of science of the world. It was in 1836, when he was twenty-nine years old, that Agassiz resolutely set himself to study the glaciers of the Alps, and his celebrated work, Etudes sur les Glaciers, was published at Neuchatel in 1840, accompanied by an atlas with plates illus trating the glaciers. The work likewise appeared in Germany being published at Solothurn (Solerne) in 1841. Its appearance? * Report of Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1874, p. 199. Downloaded from http://trned.lyellcollection.org/ at University of Georgia on June 21, 2015 248 EDINBURGH GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. marks an epoch in the history of superficial geology, for until Agassiz cast light upon the subject by his researches, men had groped about very much in the dark. SCHEUCHZER, the eminent Zurich naturalist, had in 1706 described the glaciers, but did not remark their moraines or polished rocks. GRUNER in 1760 made interesting observations on the movements of the Grindel- wald glaciers. In 1803 DE SAUSSURE laid the foundations of cur present .knowledge of glaciers, and was the first to remark their moraines. He observed likewise the polished rocks, which he named roches rnoutonntfes, but he erroneously attri buted the polishing to water. So also Sir JAMES HALL, the eminent Scotch physicist, attributed in 1812 (after visiting the Alps) the polishing of the roches moutonnees of Corstorphine Hill near our city to "the operation of immense torrents of water." I read a paper upon this subject before our Society in March 1875, after visiting Switzerland and Savoy* and pointed out the resemblances between the roches moutonnees of Corstorphine Hill and polished rocks which I had seen near the Handeck in the upper portion of the Hasli ThaLf HUGI in 1830 narrowly studied the Swiss glaciers, but, strangely enough, he considered the roches moutonnees a peculiar form of weathering assumed by granite. In 1833 VENETZ suggested the vast extension of the Alpine glaciers in former times, and instanced the remains of old moraines as evidence. His friend CHARPENTIER studied the little glacier lakes, and was the first to recognise that glaciers abrade, round, and polish the rocks they traverse. It was with him that Agassiz spent five months in 1836, deriving immense benefit from his experience during the frequent excursions which they made among the Alps to study glaciers and glacier- cation. Indeed, Agassiz dedicates his great work the Etudes to Venetz and De Charpentier, stating that their important researches had aroused in him a desire to study the glaciers of the Alps, whilst their kindness had enabled him to study them thoroughly.

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