PREFACE 



I SUSPECT that in this volume my reader will 

 feel that I have given him a stone when he asked 

 for bread, and his feeling in this respect will need no 

 apology. I fear there is more of the matter of hard 

 science and of scientific speculation in this collec 

 tion than of spiritual and aesthetic nutriment; but 

 I do hope the volume is not entirely destitute of the 

 latter. If I have not in some degree succeeded in 

 transmuting my rocks into a kind of wholesome 

 literary bread, or, to vary the figure, in turning them 

 into a soil in which some green thing or flower of 

 human interest and emotion may take root and 

 grow, then, indeed, have I come short of the end 

 I had in view. 



I am well aware that my own interest in geology 

 far outruns my knowledge, but if I can in some de 

 gree kindle that interest in my reader, I shall be 

 putting him on the road to a fuller knowledge than 

 I possess. As with other phases of nature, I have 

 probably loved the rocks more than I have studied 

 them. In my youth I delighted in lingering about 

 and beneath the ledges of my native hills, partly in 

 the spirit of adventure and a boy s love of the wild, 

 and partly with an eye to their curious forms, and 

 v 



5729V* 



