[67] Lough Neagh has been produced by subsidence, probably since the Glacial Period. See Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain, vol. ii. p. 448.
[68] Some of these subjects were subsequently more fully treated in the three foregoing essays of the present volume.
V
The Centenary of Hutton's 'Theory of the Earth'[69]
In its beneficent progress through these islands the British Association for the Advancement of Science now for the fourth time receives a welcome in this ancient capital. Once again, under the shadow of these antique towers, crowded memories of a romantic past fill our thoughts. The stormy annals of Scotland seem to move in procession before our eyes as we walk these streets, whose names and traditions have been made familiar to the civilised world by the genius of literature. At every turn, too, we are reminded, by the monuments which a grateful city has erected, that for many generations the pursuits which we are now assembled to foster have had here their congenial home. Literature, philosophy, science, have each in turn been guided by the influence of the great masters who have lived here, and whose renown is the brightest gem in the chaplet around the brow of this 'Queen of the North.'
Lingering for a moment over these local associations, we shall find a peculiar appropriateness in the time of this renewed visit of the Association to Edinburgh. A hundred years ago a remarkable group of men was discussing here the great problem of the history of the earth. James Hutton, after many years of travel and reflection, had communicated to the Royal Society of this city, in the year 1785, the first outlines of his famous Theory of the Earth. Among those with whom he took counsel in the elaboration of his doctrines were Black, the illustrious discoverer of 'fixed air' and 'latent heat'; Clerk, the sagacious inventor of the system of breaking the enemy's line in naval tactics; Hall, whose fertile ingenuity devised the first system of experiments in illustration of the structure and origin of rocks; and Playfair, through whose sympathetic enthusiasm and literary skill Hutton's views came ultimately to be understood and appreciated by the world at large. With these friends, so well able to comprehend and criticise his efforts to pierce the veil that shrouded the history of this globe, he paced the streets amid which we are now gathered together; with them he sought the crags and ravines around us, wherein Nature has laid open so many impressive records of her past; with them he sallied forth on those memorable expeditions to distant parts of Scotland, whence he returned laden with treasures from a field of observation which, though now so familiar, was then almost untrodden. The centenary of Hutton's Theory of the Earth is an event in the annals of science which seems most fittingly celebrated by a meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh.
In choosing from among the many subjects which might properly engage your attention on the present occasion, I have thought that it would not be inappropriate nor uninteresting to consider the more salient features of that 'Theory,' and to mark how much in certain departments of inquiry has sprung from the fruitful teaching of its author and his associates.