Outlines of Geology; Being the Substance of a Course of Lectures Delivered in the Theatre of the Royal Institution, Etc. With a Plate.

Outlines Of Geology; Being The Substance Of A Course Of Lectures Delivered In The Theatre Of The Royal Institution, Etc. With A Plate by William Thomas Brande. This volume assembles Brande’s introductory lectures on geology, outlining the aims, methods, and practical relevance of the science. It traces geology from speculative ideas to the modern, evidence?based inquiry that stresses observation and induction. Brande surveys the history of ideas, including Burnet, Woodward, Leibnitz, Whiston, Whitehurst, and Buffon, and then presents the two leading systems—the Wernerian and the Huttonian—through the rock?scale framework of primitive, transition, and secondary formations. He offers clear treatments of granite, porphyry, serpentine, marble, slate, limestone, coal, oolite, chalk, and basalt, and explains rock succession, fossils, veins, and igneous phenomena. He connects geological knowledge to mining, agriculture, and construction, and closes with reflections on nature’s unity and the moral dimension of scientific study. An explanatory plate accompanies the text, illustrating England’s alluvial to primary strata.