82 



A day's ramble amongst the low-moor coal pits. 



" He looks abroad into the vaiied field 

 Of nature, and, though poor perhaps compar'd 

 With those whose mansions glitter in his sight. 

 Calls the delightful scen'ry all his own. 

 His are the mountains, and the vallies his. 

 And the resplendent rivers. His t ' enjoy 

 With a propriety that none can feel. 

 But who with a filial confidence inspir'd, 

 Can lift to heaven an unpresumtive eye, 

 And smiling say, ' My father made them all.' " 



Such are tlie feelings -whicli animate tlie hearts of all who are 

 accustomed to commune with nattire, in all her varying moods ; and have 

 imbibed the glorious emotions and delicious enjoyments, which the 

 contemplation of her works, ever inspire in the bosoms of her admirers. If 

 the present aspect of creation can call forth the deepest emotions of our 

 hearts, and give birth to all those grand and sublime effusions whichadorn the 

 pages of our noblest poets ; how much more wiU our admiration be exalted 

 by the knowledge that it is but the latest phase of a long continuous series of 

 creations ('each perhaps as important in the great " plan of Him who 

 formed it," as our own), whose history is recorded in the illuminated pages 

 of the Great Stone Book ? It is the glorious priviledge of the geologist to 

 turn over the pages of this strange book and gaze with ever increasing 

 delight upon the marvellous wonders despicted therein. He above all 

 men, may be truly said to move in a world of his own ; but a world in 

 which the present is ever linked with the past, forming one grand, 



" Stupendous whole. 

 Whose body nature is and God the soul." 



Sometimes he beholds the " monsters vast of ages past " of the great 

 age of Reptiles rise like a dream before him. Reptiles, compared to which, 

 the Alligators and Crocodiles of the Nile and Ganges are harmless as 

 frogs and newts. Sometimes he roams over plateaus of the mighty deep, 

 now elevated hundreds and thousands of feet above the level of the sea, 

 forming stupendous tumuli, and filled with the remains of sea animals > 



