This curious lethargy with respect to theory, on the part of men who were popularly regarded as among the most speculative followers of science, would probably not have been speedily dispelled by any discovery made within their own field of observation. Even now, after many years of the most diligent research, the first chapters of our planet's history remain undiscovered or undecipherable. On the great terrestrial palimpsest the earliest inscriptions seem to have been hopelessly effaced by those of later ages. But the question of the primeval condition and subsequent history of the planet might be considered from the side of astronomy and physics. And it was by investigations of this nature that the geological torpor was eventually dissipated. To our illustrious former President, Lord Kelvin, who occupied this chair when the Association last met in Edinburgh, is mainly due the rousing of attention to this subject. By the most convincing arguments he showed how impossible it was to believe in the extreme doctrine of uniformitarianism. And though, owing to uncertainty in regard to some of the data, wide limits of time were postulated by him, he insisted that within these limits the whole evolution of the earth and its inhabitants must have been comprised. While, therefore, the geological doctrine that the present order of Nature must be our guide to the interpretation of the past remained as true and fruitful as ever, it had now to be widened by the reception of evidence furnished by a study of the earth as a planetary body. The secular loss of heat, which demonstrably takes place both from the earth and the sun, made it quite certain that the present could not have been the original condition of the system. This diminution of temperature with all its consequences is not a mere matter of speculation, but a physical fact of the present time as much as any of the familiar physical agencies that affect the surface of the globe. It points with unmistakable directness to that beginning of things of which Hutton and his followers could find no sign.