During the last quarter of the 18th century, Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817), lecturer for mining and mineralogy at the Freiberg Mining Academy, was widely acknowledged as the most influential mineralogist/earth scientist of his time. In quite a similar way, the English country squire Charles Lyell (1797-1875) became the leader of the discipline in the 19th century, mainly due to his Principles of geology (1830-1833), the most influential geological text book of the century. Both men’s concepts of the study of the earth show several differences. One of the most remarkable ones related to travelling, and geological fieldwork. While Werner´s ideas on the formation of the earth were based mainly on the descriptive natural history of minerals and rocks, Lyell emphasized travelling and field work as indispensable requirements of geological work.

The present paper discusses this fundamental and immediate change of geological methodology within a few decades in early 19th century with particular regard to its cultural settings, i.e. to the idea of “national styles” of science. In a first part some remarks are given what, in this respect, might be called the “invention” of geological field work by the British country squires of the London Geological Society. In a second part it is asked for a contrasting, more “contemplative” (“German”) practice of geological travelling and geological fieldwork, focusing on Heinrich Girard’s (1814-1878) “geological wanderings” in Switzerland and France. Girard has been a professor of mineralogy and geognosy at Halle (Germany) since 1853. From the beginning travelling and field work were essential parts of his work. He had started his career at the university of Berlin were the chemist Eilhard Mitscherlich (1794–1863), the geographer Carl Ritter (1779–1859) and the mineralogist Gustav Rose (1798–1873) have been among his teachers. Particular important, however, became several travels accompanying the Berlin botanist Heinrich Friedrich Link (1767–1851) to Italy, and, for several times, also the geologist Leopold von Buch (1774–1853) who became his mentor, at all. In 1845 he became a Privatdozent for mineralogy at Berlin publishing his first more comprehensive geological papers, which were mainly the result of a series of wanderings in Northern Germany, mostly together with his students.