464 Laiurencian Formation. 



I may seem to exaggerate the advantages of such studies ; but 

 the question after all is one of experience ; and I have had expe- 

 rience enough and to spare that what I say is true. I have seen 

 the young man of fierce passions, and uncontrollable daring, ex- 

 pend healthily that energy which threatened daily to plunge him 

 into recklessness, if not into sin, upon hunting out and collecting, 

 throuTjh rock and bog, snow and tempest, every bird and Qgg of 

 the neighboring forest. I have seen the cultivated man, craving 

 for travel and for success in life, pent up in the drudgery of Lon- 

 don work, and yet keeping his spirit calm, and perhaps his morals 

 all the more righteous, by spending over his microscope evenings 

 which would too probably have gradually been wasted at the thea- 

 tre. I have seen the young London beauty, amid all the excitement 

 and temptation of luxury and flattery, with her heart pure and 

 her mind occupied in a boudoir full of shells and fossils, flowers 

 and sea-weeds, and keeping herself unspotted from the world, by 

 considering the lilies of the field, how they grow. And therefore 

 it is that I hail with thankfulness every fresh book of Natural His- 

 tory, as a fresh boon to the young, a fresh help to those who have 

 to educate them. 



Lawrencian Formation. — This formation was so called by 

 M. Desor, a French Geologist, but as the name has the same sound 

 as Laurention it is not we believe intended to be adopted 

 permanently in this country. Were there no other reason the 

 impossibility of understanding in conversation which of the two 

 might be the subject would of itself be suflicient. Bat it is not 

 satisfactorily proved as we have before remarked, (337,) that 

 the deposit is distinct from the drift properly so called, and the 

 time therefore has not yet arrived for eff'ecting a separation. It 

 was for this reason that we stated that the Tertiary rocks " are 

 supposed to consist of two divisions." AVe do not approve of 

 minute subdivisions particularly where as in this case the separa- 

 tion is proposed partly upon negative evddence, i. e., that fossils 

 have not been found in the lower part of the deposit. Several 

 lines of this kind have been already drawn in the geology of 

 North America, and as might be expected are fast fading away 

 before the increasing light of science. 



