23 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



liave access to, and then boldly take the field for | 

 yourself. In addition to a hammer, we would 

 advise the young student to take a good steel nar- 

 row-pointed chisel and a putty-knife. The former 

 is very useful for working round, and eventually 

 obtaining, any fossil that may have been weathered 

 into relief. The latter is equally serviceable for 

 clayey rocks or shales. 



In arranging the spoils of these excursions for the 

 cabinet, a little care and taste are required. We 

 will suppose you to possess one of those many- 

 drawered cabinets which can now be obtained so 

 cheaply. Begin at the bottom, so that the lowest 

 drawers represent the lowest-seated and oldest 

 rocks, and the uppermost the most recent. If pos- 

 sible, have an additional cabinet for local geology, 

 and never forget that the first duty of a collector is 

 to have his own district well represented ! A com- 

 pass of a few miles will, in most cases, enable him 

 to get a store of fossils or minerals which cannot 

 well be obtained elsewhere. Supposing he is desir- 

 ous of having the geological systems well repre- 

 sented, he can always do so by the insertion of such 

 paragraphs as those which appear in our own Ex- 

 change columns. It is by well and thoroughly 

 working separate localities in this fashion that the 

 science of geology is best advanced. You hear a 

 good deal about the " missing links," and it is an 

 accepted fact that we, perhaps, do not know a tithe 

 of the organic remains that formerly enjoyed life. 

 Who knows, therefore, but that if you exhaust your 

 district by the assiduous collection of fossils, you may 

 not come across such new forms as may settle many 

 moot points in ancient and modern natural history ? 

 The genuine love of geological study is always pretty 

 fairly manifested in a student's cabinet. Science, 

 like charity, begins at home. It impels a man to 

 seek and explain that which is nearest to him, before 

 he attempts the elucidation of what really lies in 

 another man's territory ! 



It is not necessary that the student should waste 

 time in the field about naming or trying to remem- 

 ber the names of fossils, &c. on the spot. That 

 can be best done at home, and the pleasure of " col- 

 lecting" can thus be spun to its longest length. 

 Box them, pack them well (or all your labour is 

 lost), and name them at home. Or, supposing you 

 do not possess books which can assist you in nomen- 

 clature, carry your fossils or minerals, just as you 

 found them, to the nearest and best local museum, 

 where you will be sure to see the majority of them 

 in their proper places and with their proper names. 

 Copy these, and when you arrange your specimens 

 in the cabinet, either get printed cards with the fol- 

 lowing headings — 



Genus 



Species 



(which can always be obtained at a cheap rate from 

 the London dealers), or else set to work and copy 

 them yourself in a good plain hand, so that there is 

 no mistaking what you write. As far as possible, in 

 each drawer or drawers representing a geological 

 formation, arrange your specimens in natural-history 

 order — the lowest organisms first, gradually ascend- 

 ing to the higher. By doing so, you present geolo- 

 gical and zoological relationship, so that they can be 

 taken in at a glance. You further make yourself 

 acquainted with the relations of the fossils in a way 

 you never would have done, had you been content to 

 huddle them together in any fashion so that you 

 had them all together. Glass-topped boxes, again, 

 are very useful in the cabinet, especially for delicate 

 or fragile fossils, as people are so ready to take them 

 in their hands when they are shown, little thinking 

 how soon a cherished rarity may be destroyed, never 

 to be replaced. Pasteboard trays, made of stiff green 

 paper, squared by the student according to size, can 

 also be so arranged as that the drawer may be entirely 

 filled, and so the danger of shaking the contents 

 about may be removed. Each tray of fossils ought 

 to have the above-mentioned label fastened down in 

 such a way as that it cannot by accident get changed 

 by removal. 



The spring and summer time are fast approaching, 

 and we know of nothhig that will so much assist in 

 their rational enjoyment as the adoption of some study 

 in natural science. Botany, entomology, ornitho- 

 logy, geology, are all health-affording, nature-loving 

 pursuits. We have passed some of the very hap- 

 piest moments of our lives in solitary quarries or on 

 green hill-sides, " the world forgetting, by the world 

 forgot !" There, amid the wreck of former creations, 

 and with the glory of the present one around us, we 

 have yielded to the delicious sense of reverie, such as 

 can only be begotten under such circumstances. The 

 shady side of the quarry has screened us from solar 

 heat, and, whilst the air has been melodious with a 

 thousand voices, we have made personal acquaint- 

 ance with the numerous objects of God's creation, 

 animals and plants. How apt are the thoughts 

 of the poet Crabbe, and how well do they convey 

 the feeling of the young geologist in such places : — 



" It is a lonely place, and at the side 

 Rises a mountain rock in rugged pride ; 

 And in that rock are shapes of sheUs, and forms 

 Of creatures in old worlds, and nameless worms — 

 Whole generations lived and died, ere man, 

 A worm of other class, to crawl began." 



John E. Taylob, 



Formation_ 

 Locality 



"Native magnets from Arabia, China, and 

 Bengal, are commonly of a reddish colour, and are 

 powerfully attractive. Those found in Germany 

 and England have the colour of unwrought iron ; 

 those from Macedonia are more black and dull." — 

 Professor Noad's "Magnetism." 



