by gathering materials, towards solving these questions, the task of future observers may still be made lighter. I might also plead the interest felt in all things connected with astronomy, an interest so wide-spread that the second edition of Sir John Herschel's astronomy was out of print within a few weeks of its appearance. Lastly I might urge the example offered by a long list of illustrious writers, who have treated of such subjects in the same work, without considering it necessary first of all to prove the existence of a common bond of structure or relation.

The first brief sketch of the work appeared in the shape of a few scattered papers in All the Year Round, and the editor of that deservedly favourite journal having kindly granted the fullest leave to reprint them, they are now offered to the public in a more extended and connected form than was possible in a periodical. Most of the views there put forward have only been confirmed by more recent discoveries, and though here and there some changes have been introduced, they rather enlarge than radically alter the positions first taken up.

A deep and increasing interest is evidently felt in the subjects treated of. Every day's experience confirms the shrewd remark made not long ago by Lord Palmerston, that "a general knowledge of the crusts of the earth is an essential accomplishment for every gentleman, and is useful in whatever pursuit a man is about to engage." Where interest fails to rouse, pride will step in. As men rise in the scale of society, they grow more ashamed of the ignorance about which they boast in an age of profligacy or violence. Besides I suppose there is in every mind and in the rudest nations, a desire to know the natural history of at least that speck of the globe they may happen to inhabit. Humboldt tells us that a "geological dream" is an essential part of every fixed form of worship, so that when history and religion first began, the law-givers and prophets of the dawning world had to still the craving for this kind of

knowledge, much as Owen and Lyell are expected to do in our day.

And there are worse things to crave and thirst after than geology,* worse things to gossip about than the chronicles of the earthquake and volcano, the flood and the geyser, the olden times of the mighty lizards and the mammoths; but people have been so long used to associate their history with alarming outbreaks of greek compounds and the prospect of having to struggle at the outset with a manual of some sort, that in general they wont read geology at all; in fact they look upon it as several stages worse than law and theology, which are not generally considered inviting studies.

It is a pity this feeling should exist. Not only is geology interesting, but it is immensely valuable viewed only as a means of making money. To the miner, speaking in the broadest sense of the word, it is a priceless acquisition. For long, sinking a pit was considered a lottery in which the experienced might be deceived, and the inexperienced might ruin themselves as easily as in gambling. The reason was that geology had not been studied sufficiently by the learned, and had been contemned by the practical men as a matter only fit for the closet and lecture room. Yet it alone can convert a reckless speculation into a certainty of success. Geology revealed coal beneath the permian beds of Worksop, a discovery of more real value than many a gold digging or diamond mine might prove in the end; and Mr. Jukes says he has known as much money thrown away in fruitless searches after coal, as the geological survey of the whole kingdom would have cost.

To the colonist again the value of geology can scarcely be overrated. A man thoroughly versed in it may see in a barren tract of scrub, or a rugged chain of mountain land,

* The division of the chapter on Geology into days is not, in the most remote way, intended to clash with those of Genesis. The term day is simply used to express a long and distinct period.

signs of every thing he could sigh for. Thus when the rocks of Australia were examined, it was soon noticed that there was a marked correspondence between them and certain rocks in the old country. In consequence a vigorous and systematic search was made, and the explorers were rewarded by discovering ample supplies of silver, lead, iron, copper, coal, and gold; so that the reader who is at all uneasy about our mines being worked out and half a dozen counties being made bankrupt, may console himself by reflecting that a fabulous supply of mining wealth is at hand in Australia.

It was geology and geology only that really discovered gold in this strange country. Long before it was found Sir Roderick Murchison foretold that it existed there; the Reverend Mr. Clarke did the same thing, and it was the pressure put upon government by the geologists that led to the matter being taken up and a reward being offered, the result of which was the discovery of gold.*

Geology will tell a settler other things even better worth knowing, for the value of gold-diggings has been quite overrated. Granite rocks and slates indicate that mountainous ridges are in close proximity, that when he sees them he may rely upon a good supply of fresh water and deep soil; that mineral wealth lies near and that good stone and timber can be had. A chalky coast, bringing back to memory the old familiar cliffs of England, will assure him that scenes like those on the Sussex downs are soon to break upon the view; little if any wood and not too much water, but long undulated plains where his sheep will fatten and multiply till he counts them by tens of thousands, or like Prince Esterhazy knows their number only by the number of his shepherds.

Hugh Miller, in his "Rambles of a Geologist," gives an

* Geological Observations in South Australia, by the Rev. Julian Edmond Woods.

admirable description of the difference he saw during his wanderings between the crops growing over different kinds of rock. "The harvest," he says, "had been early, and on to the village of Stonehaven and a mile or two beyond, where the fossiliferous deposits end and the primary begin, the country presented from the deck only a wide expanse of stubble. Every farmsteading we passed had its piled stackyard and the fields were bare. But the line of demarcation between the old red sandstone and the granite districts, proved also a separating line between an earlier and a later harvest; the fields of the less kindly subsoil derived from the primary rocks were, I could see, still speckled with sheaves, and where the land lay high or the exposure was unfavourable, there were reapers at work. All along in the course of my journey northward from Aberdeen, I continued to find the country covered with shocks, and labourers employed among them; until crossing the Spey I entered on the fossiliferous districts of Moray; and then, as in the South, the champaign again showed a bare breadth of stubble, with here and there a ploughman engaged in turning it down." The same writer tells us that if we except the islands of the Inner Hebrides, the desolating famine of 1846, which cost this country over fifty millions sterling, was restricted in Scotland to the primary districts, so that only to know the difference between granite and roe-stone, might, to a farmer, make all the difference between ruin and prosperity.

Cliffs of marl and chalk also will tell the farmer that his cherry orchard may yet emulate the fame of the amberhearts of Kent and the famous growths of Normandy. A large extent of limestone or calcareous strata will give fair promise of a fertile soil, where fruit trees will thrive as in Kent and Devonshire, where the myrtle and fuchsia, the geranium, the rose and the fig-tree will add their undisputed charms to the rude comforts and wild plenty of the settler's homestead, and mingle the memories of home, and the

emblems of english summer, with the more solid wants of life. This, too, is peculiarly the formation that yields those beautiful waterfalls, underground streams, natural bridges, and fine old sea-worn caverns, which have furnished the poet and painter with so many of their noblest images, and which speak to the best and most solemn feelings of every heart. Geology does not war with such feelings, nor does the study of life. The one will eleyate a latent passion for science into a thirst after truth, which will often weather those storms that crush out all enjoyment of grosser tastes; the other will throw an interest over the rudest calling, the work of the quarryman and the miner. The loftiest flights of the builder's art must depend for their stability upon the decisions of the geologist, and his opinions may, as in the case of Australia, regulate the wealth and even the fate of empires.

But for the colonist, the overtasked professional man, for thousands of other men, geology as it is usually written in the higher class of works is utterly incomprehensible; it might as well be penned in hebrew or sanscrit. I may therefore begin by assuring any timid reader, that I am neither going to discuss the chronology of the world nor to bewilder him with scientific terms. I really don't wonder at any person new to the subject being rather alarmed when he comes to such words as dolichocephalic and notochord, rhomboidal solids and diagonal lamination. He may well conclude that geologists are sometimes like other philosophers"their discourses are as the stars which give little light because they are so high."

Or suppose the reader feels so far interested in the subject that he might like to know how to decide about the nature of a fossil. One of the first things he must learn is about the teeth; they are one of the grand distinctive marks that guide the breeder and horse-dealer, as much as they do the strictly scientific professor who would be shocked at the idea of alluding to them except under a greek name and in