Feather stonhaugWs Geological Report. 7 



at this promising aspect of things since my retnrn from my 

 late excursion, I have become more than ever impressed with 

 the propriety of endeavoring to make my labors as useful, in 

 the popular sense, as my opportunities permit. 



It is well known that the geological literature of the pres- 

 ent day, is not of a sufficiently elementary character for the 

 very great number of persons desirous of possessing a practi- 

 cal guide for their studies, simple and perspicious enough to 

 keep down the repugnance which technical works, applicable 

 to an advanced state of the science, invariably produce. 

 Many powerful minds are deterred from the pursuit of various 

 branches of natural history, from an inability to take the first 

 step successfully, and he who is properly penetrated with this 

 truth, and obeys its influence, will esteem it no degradation 

 to take upon himself the humbler task of elementary instruc- 

 tion for the benefit of the many, even when he may have 

 reason to suppose his intentions will not always be indulgently 

 appreciated by the least liberal of the scientific few. Inde- 

 pendent of the greater chance of doing good, and of the 

 pleasure of looking forward to witness the extraordinary elas- 

 ticity of minds from which the pressure has been gently 

 removed, the very fact of there being no elementary work ap- 

 plicable to American geology, no geological column showing 

 the succession of the beds and a comparative view of the 

 geological equivalents in both hemispheres, together with a 

 brief abstract of the characteristic organic remains contained 

 in the beds, and the other remarkable phenomena illustrative 

 of the structure of the accessible part of the crust of the 

 earth, would be a sufficient motive for any writer whose ex- 

 perience might be thought to authorize the attempt, not only 

 to endeavor thus to be extensively useful, but indirectly to re- 

 flect the greatest degree of intelligence upon the observations 

 which it was his duty to make, that they might be understood, 

 by all who read them, in the most comprehensive sense. In 

 short, perceiving the general desire to acquire systematic in- 



