The vexed questions of the origin of Raised Beaches and Sunk Forests
might in like manner be elucidated by well-devised measurements. It
is astonishing upon what loose and unreliable evidence the elevation
or depression of coast-lines has often been asserted. On shores
where proofs of a recent change of level are observable it would not
be difficult to establish by accurate observation whether any such
movements are taking place now, and, if they are, to determine their
rate. The old attempts of this kind along the coasts of Scandinavia
might be resumed with far more precision and on a much more extended
scale. Methods of instrumental research have been vastly improved since
the days of Celsius and Linnæus. Mere eye-observations would not supply
sufficiently accurate results. When the datum-line has been determined
with rigorous accuracy, the minutest changes of level, such as would
be wholly inappreciable to the senses, might be detected and recorded.
If such a system of watch were maintained along coasts where there is
reason to believe that some change in the relative level of sea and
land is taking place, it would be possible to follow the progress of
the movement and to determine its rate.
But I must not dwell longer on examples of the advantages which geology
would gain from a far more general and systematic adoption of methods
of experiment and measurement in elucidation of the problems of the
science. I have referred to a few of those which have a more special
bearing on the question of geological time, but it is obvious that the
same methods might be extended into almost every branch of geological
dynamics. While we gladly and gratefully recognise the large amount of
admirable work that has already been done by the adoption of these
practical methods, from the time of Hall, the founder of experimental
geology, down to our own day, we cannot but feel that our very
appreciation of the gain which the science has thus derived increases
the desire to see the practice still further multiplied and extended. I
am confident that it is in this direction more than in any other that
the next great advances of geology are to be anticipated.
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