A POPULAR EXPOSITION 



OP THE 



MINERALS AND GEOLOGY 



OF 



CENTRAL CANADA. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 



The aim of the present work is to impart, in a simple and con- 

 densed form, a practical knowledge of Canadian minerals and rock 

 formations, including with the latter, the various fossilized bodies 

 which so many of these rocks contain, and by which their respective 

 ages and positions are principally established. Geology, in the 

 proper acceptation of the term, comprises the History of the Earth 

 as distinct from records of human action and progress : a history 

 revealed to us by the study of the rock masses which lie around and 

 beneath us ; and by a comparison of the results of ancient phenomena, 

 as exhibited in these rocks, with the forces and agencies still at work 

 in modifying the surface of the globe. As Geology is thus essentially 

 based on the study of rocks and their contents, and as rocks are not 

 only made up of a certain number of simple minerals, but contain 

 also many of these latter in veins and other more or less accidental 

 forms of occurrence, it is advisable at the outset to obtain a certain 

 knowledge of the distinctive characters of minerals, and of the ap- 

 plication of these characters to the determination of mineral bodies 

 generally. This achieved, we may proceed to the study of the more 

 extended mineral masses, or rocks proper : their classification, struc- 

 tural characters, composition, modes of formation, and other related 

 points of inquiry. The study of Organic Remains comes next in 

 order these bodies, the representatives of departed forms of life, 

 occurring in great numbers in many strata. They serve not only for 

 the practical identification of the rock groups in which they are 

 enclosed thus enabling us to determine, for instance, whether a 

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