rocks which he did not formerly possess, and thus of knowing where minerals may or may not be expected to Occur. This is one of its most evident advantages, and one in which the whole community is more or less interested. Ignorant miners were often guided in their search for ores or coal by certain characters which were of little value, except in a few localities, and induced men to spend much money seeking for mineral treasures in places where a geologist could have said at once that they were not to be found. In many places both in England and Scotland, mines may be seen driven for hundreds of yards through the hardest rocks, in the expectation of discovering coal, though men of science know that it is never found in such circumstances, and though the whole succession of rocks is laid open by some neighbouring river or ravine. Mr Murchison, when examining the geological structure of Wales, met with repeated instances of this kind, and the poor farmers, after ruining themselves in the vain research, often complained to him of their landlords, who would not continue the profitless pursuit. Ah! if our squires were only men of spirit, we should have as fine coal as any in the world,' was the frequent remark of such speculators, wholly untaught by their own painful experience. Yet a few popular lessons in geology, such as might be readily given in half-a-dozen numbers of this journal, would have dissipated the vain delusion, and taught these men that they were spending their money and labour to no purpose. Even in the south of Scotland, where the mass of the people are well educated, many similar attempts have been made on rocks of the same geological formation, and, of course, with equal want of success. It is a singular fact that these explorers are usually misled by a variety of black slate, composed almost entirely of flint, and hence as hard as iron, and wholly incombustible. It is in truth well described by a sanguine excavator of this class, mentioned in the Statistical Report of Selkirkshire, who said to his minister, It is as black as a coal, as hard as a coal, and as heavy as a coal; in short, it is coal altogether; except that it will not

burn.'

In these instances, geology would have told these persons that coal worth working never occurred in such rocks, and thus saved them their dear-bought experience. But it not only tells where coal is not, but also where it is to be found. It makes known the order and succession of the various rocky beds that make up the crust of the earth, and thus renders its interior almost transparent to the eye of science. The practical geologist examines the surface of a country, and finds it composed of a species of rock which he knows lies higher in the series than coal. From its fossil remains, the shells or plants it contains, he knows its place in the earth's crust, and hence the probability of coal lying below it. Such scientific divining has, in many instances, proved successful, and many undertakings which merely practical men ridiculed, have produced great wealth to the bold theorist who dared to despise their warnings. Mr Murchison, in the work already alluded to, mentions many instances of valuable coal-pits sunk through beds of red sandstone, in places where, a few years ago, no one suspected this mineral to exist. In the north of England many similar cases occur. There are examples, too, of valuable minerals not concealed in the bowels of the earth, but lying open on its surface, having been wholly neglected till some competent geologist was led to the spot by accident. In Unst, the most northern of the British Isles, great quantities of a particular rock were strewed over the ground, and so little regarded as to be used for constructing walls or fences. Dr Hibbert found that this was the chromate of iron, from which chrome yellow, so much used in our manufactures, is prepared, and these neglected stones immediately became objects of commerce, and a source of large income to the proprietors.

These few instances show the advantages which may

result from the study of geology. The interests of private individuals are not only promoted by it, but also those of the whole nation. Those stores of fuel, on which the prosperity of Great Britain, as a manufacturing country, so closely depends, are by it enlarged and laid open. Their true extent is made known, and the bestmethods of working them discovered. In the last example, we find it converting the stones that encumbered the soil of the most remote island of the Zetlands into a source of wealth to its inhabitants, and an important material of national industry. Many other instances might be produced of the benefits it has conferred both on private individuals and the community, and other applications of its principles to various professions and pursuits might be noticed. The above, however, may suffice as proofs of ments of mankind. But few can directly participate in its tendency to promote the material interests and enjoythese advantages compared to the number of those to whom it may prove a copious source of intellectual gratification and moral improvement. Though the study of geology may be begun in books and class-rooms, it must be pursued in the open fields. The descriptions and theories of our instructors must be compared with the realities and facts of nature. It is thus only that progress can be made in the science, and its true advantages realized. We must cease to listen to the voice of men, that we may hear the Creator speaking to us in his works. Nor is it to every part of these works alike that the attention of the geologist is turned. The verdant meadow or the fertile plains, covered with rich and luxuriant vegetation, do not escape his notice, and in his eyes have a meaning and a worth beyond that observable to the common crowd of men. Their beauty and fertility is as open to him as to the painter, poet, or agriculturist; but, besides this, he sees in them parts of a great whole, and can trace back their history, through many revolutions, to the time when they were perhaps the bottom of a lake whose waters have disappeared, the estuary of a river which has ceased to flow, or a portion of the channels of the ocean above which they are now far elevated. But the pursuits of the geologist lead him to prefer other scenes, of a wilder, more rugged, and less generally attractive nature. The rocky sea-coast, where the land and waters carry on their never-ending contests for the supremacy, is to him full of instruction. In the lofty cliffs, sections are laid open he would in vain look for elsewhere, and the mouldering pinnacles of rock speak to him of events older than the Pyramids, and chronicled in characters more enduring and intelligible than their sculptured hieroglyphics. The narrow ravine, where the foaming river can scarce force its way amidst the projecting rocks, has many lessons to impart to him. In its rude walls he sees the various strata concealed beneath the deep soil and abundant crops of the neighbouring plains; whilst the form and depth of the channel tell of the power of aqueous erosion, and form a kind of natural chronometer, by which the past duration of our present continents may be estimated.

But the favourite resort of the geologist is the lofty mountains and their lone valleys. In their towering rocks and majestic precipices he sees clear traces of those tremendous forces which have agitated and convulsed the globe. In searching out these, he is led into wild scenes of the most romantic beauty, which have been for ages concealed in the remote wilderness. He thus sees and enjoys much which is hid from others, who have not this motive to explore these lonely solitudes. Here also his science gives meaning to natural appearances which to other men seem unintelligible and repulsive. In the rude blocks scattered over a mountain-side, in some remote glen of the Highlands, he finds a confirmation or confutation of a theory of the universe, or an explanation of facts observed in some remote quarter of the globe. No one can look without emotion on the granite pinnacles of Arran, rising from the broad estuary of the Clyde; but they have assuredly more than a twofold interest to those who see in that small island a model of the whole earth,

1

and a test of all the theories that have been proposed to account for its phenomena.

Geology thus makes us acquainted with some of the most interesting parts of that great globe we inhabit, and enables us to find pleasure and instruction even in its rudest and most barren districts. The bleakest moor loses its loneliness, and the sandy down is not so uniform or devoid of meaning as to disgust us. In this way, travelling is rendered doubly instructive and amusing, and is changed from a mere mean of spending time or gratifying an idle and ignorant curiosity, into a source of high moral and intellectual improvement. It is indeed remarkable, when we look to the number of persons who in the present day wander over the length and breadth of our land, how few of them take any care to derive from their journeys the full amount of amusement and information they are fitted to convey. It is not enough to visit remarkable places, to stand on the ground consecrated to virtue and patriotism, unless we participate in these feelings and have our good resolutions strengthened by the emotions they inspire. So, also, in visiting beautiful and sublime scenery, it is not sufficient to yield up our minds in listless indolence to the pleasurable emotions they excite. Such scenes are calculated to inspire higher sentiments, and we forfeit half their use and value when our minds are not prepared to receive these. Nothing stands alone in nature; no part of the vast universe exists solely for itself. Every portion of it is connected with those around, and bears to them innumerable relations. The true import of the mountains and hills can only be understood when viewed in connexion with plains and valleys; and the significance of the sandy deserts of the Sahara, may be read in the genial climate of the European continent. But it is geology and its connected sciences which hold the key to this branch of wisdom, and can alone open their treasures to men. It not only unfolds the present purpose and uses of the various portions of creation, but exhibits their connexion with what precedes and follows them. It thus lays open to us wider and more extended views of the Divine Providence, and proves that even the physical welfare and comfort of man had been foreseen and attended to ages before he was called into being. For to what else than the wise benevolence of the Creator can we ascribe those stores of coal, and iron, and limestone, accumulated in such inexhaustible abundance round this city, and in so many other parts of the island, and brought into that contact with one another which renders them available to the uses of men? Had each existed in equal or even greater profusion, but widely separated from the other; had the iron ore been found without the coal and limestone necessary to convert it into the precious metal; how far inferior would have been the advantages derived from them! What a blight would it cast on the industry and commerce of this great country!

These are but a few of the reflections which a consideration of the science of geology presents. We have not alluded to those extinct creations of organized beings which have been disentombed from the solid rock. The wonderful character of these, and the singular mode of their preservation, have of late attracted so much attention as almost to cause the other departments of geology to be forgotten. Yet the formation of mountain chains and valleys, the effects of rivers and tides, the phenomena of earthquakes and volcanoes, the elevation of islands and continents, the external form and internal structure of this great globe, seem not less worthy of our study. To some of these things it is our purpose to revert in a few papers in some numbers of this journal, in which we shall endeavour to explain, in simple language, the great truths and principles of the science, with those numerous indications of the divine wisdom and goodness it so abundantly manifests. In these an opportunity will occur of noticing those extinct monsters of the primeval world, with their relations to that creation which has succeeded them, and of which Man forms such a distinguished part.

DUNCAN AND CAMPERDOWN. THOUGH considerably more than a century has elapsed since the birth of Lord Duncan, we some years ago saw an old lady whose father had, as Fife carrier, conveyed him from Dundee to Edinburgh on his cart, when he set out to join, as midshipman, the Shoreham frigate, then lying in Leith Roads, commanded by his kinsman Captain Haldane. He was born at Lundie, near Dundee, on the 1st of July, 1731, of an old and respectable family, which had long existed in the neighbourhood; and leaving his paternal residence in this humble style, he never returned to it till he was a peer and an admiral.

Of Duncan's early career comparatively little now is known. His strong and handsome person, and dashing spirit, speedily attracted the notice of Keppel, then a commodore, intrusted with the duty of conducting troops to North America, to settle some dispute which at the moment existed between our colonies and the French, who were at that time in possession of Canada; and he speedily obtained the rank of second lieutenant of the Centurion, 50 gun ship, whence he was shortly afterwards, by Keppel's recommendation to the Lords of the Admiralty, transferred to the first lieutenancy of the Torbay. But little or nothing farther is known of his service at this period till he was appointed to the command of the Valiant, 74, and accompanied Keppel, now an admiral, in the expedition for the reduction of Belleisle. At this celebrated siege he was present, and, shortly afterwards, he took part in the operations at the Havannah, where he commanded the boats destined to act against the Spanish ships, and with the duty of taking possession of these, when the town surrendered, he was afterwards intrusted. In the subsequent American war he appears to have taken a part, and, on its termination, he had still the good fortune to obtain the command of a new ship, the Monarch, 74, with which he remained on that station till summoned to join in the memorable expedition of Rodney to Gibraltar.

Here he greatly distinguished himself; his ship having suffered severely in the celebrated action which ensued between that commander and the Spanish fleet under Don Juan de Langara. He was next appointed to the Blenheim, 90 gun ship, and attached to the Channel fleet, under Lord Howe; but on the termination of the war, when the Blenheim was laid up, he was transferred to the Edgar, 74, in which he continued till he obtained the rank of Rear-Admiral of the Blue, in 1787. From this he was advanced to a corresponding rank in the White in 1790; and successively promoted to that of Admiral of the Blue, on the 1st of June, 1795, when he hoisted his flag on board the Venerable, and, in command of the North Sea fleet, achieved that victory by which he is now known to posterity—and a brief sketch of which we are about to record.

But a long time elapsed before his opportunity for acquiring this distinction occurred, and a memorable event took place in the interval. After he had been two years stationed off the Texel, watching the Dutch, who, with a fleet of fifteen sail of the line, six frigates, and several smaller ships, were enclosed in the interior, the formidable mutiny of the British fleet ensued, and he had the mortification to find the greater part of his ships forsake him to join the mutineers at the Nore. His conduct on this occasion was prompt, and worthy of that peerage with which it was intended to be rewarded by government, even had his subsequent victory not been obtained. By the stratagem of stationing a sloop near the fort, a frigate at a greater distance, and his own line-of-battle ship still farther out in the offing, he successfully concealed from the enemy the desertion of his followers, and by maintaining a constant series of signals, he induced them to believe that he was telegraphing a long line of ships at sea. He was by this device enabled to deceive the Dutch for several weeks, and prevent them from sailing, with their gigantic force, to take part in the expedition which the French then projected for the invasion of