For this antagonism geologists are, no doubt, chiefly themselves to blame. While the growth of a love of natural scenery, and especially of that which is lofty and rugged, has been late and slow, the desire to ascertain the origin and history of the various inequalities of surface on which the charms of scenery so largely depend, and by careful scrutiny to refer these inequalities to the operation of the different natural agencies that produced them, has been later and slower still. Men had for several generations explored the rocks that lie beneath their feet, and had, by laborious and patient effort, deciphered the marvellous history of organic and inorganic changes of which these rocks are the record, before they seriously set themselves to study the story of the present surface of the land. And thus what was one of the earliest problems to interest mankind has been one of the latest to engage the attention of modern science. This slowness of development, though it has allowed much misconception to grow up rank and luxuriant, has been attended with one compensating advantage, inasmuch as the various branches of inquiry into which the discussion of the problem resolves itself have made rapid progress in recent years. We are thus in a far better position to enter on a consideration of the subject than we were a generation ago. And though one may still hear a man gravely expounding familiar topographical features much as his grandfather would have done, as if in the meanwhile no thoughtful study had led to a very different interpretation, these popular fallacies, which manifest such vitality, can now be combated with a far wider experience, and a much ampler wealth of illustration from all parts of the globe.