XIV. On the Rocks in the vicinity of Edinburgh

Abstract

Although science has only within these few years acknowledged the importance of Geology, the eagerness with which it has been cultivated, affords sufficient proof of the interest it is capable of creating. Of this we have a recent example in the laborious undertaking of Sir George Mackenzie and his friends, who, not with standing all the dangers presented by a voyage through the most tempestuous ocean, and the deprivations to which they were exposed, in a journey through a country destitute of the slightest trace to guide the route of the traveller, were not deterred from exploring the inhospitable shores of Iceland. These, and other travellers, have extended our knowledge of various districts on the surface of the globe; but we have still to lament the extreme imperfection of the science, which, as yet, has assumed no decided character or form.