26 GEOLOGY. 



induced them to put on the stripes. Their exercises 

 to obtain it were permitted, not compelled. Their sub- 

 ject is understood rather than committed, known rather 

 than imagined. 



The progress' of this subject has not only been un- 

 paralleled as a science, but its application to Agricul- 

 ture, to Civil Engineering, and to many of the arts, has 

 already added to the wealth of our country, to a vast 

 amount. It has brought to view some of the finest 

 specimens of marble upon the earth, which had been 

 used by farmers for common enclosures for one hundred 

 and fifty years without being known. It has discovered 

 valuable quarries of building materials, within a few 

 rods of walls which were brought from a distance of as 

 many miles. It has discovered the material from which 

 coperas is made, and led to the art of manufacturing it 

 in such perfection, and at so cheap a rate, as to put an 

 end to the importation of that article so indispensable, 

 and so extensively used in the arts. It has brought to 

 view inexhaustible deposits of the material for the 

 manufactory of the beautiful pigment under the name 

 of chrome yellow, and has reduced the price of that 

 useful substance, from sixteen dollars to fifty cents a 

 pound. It has led to the establishment of a manufactory 

 of epsom salts, where seven or eight hundred tons are 

 made in a year, and of a better quality than can be 

 procured from any establishment across the Atlantic. 

 The numerous and abundant sources of industry and 

 of wealth which it has opened to our country, have in- 

 creased the treasures of wealth, no less than those of 

 knowledge; the lovers of science and of filthy lucre, 

 have in one instance been gratified by drinking at the 

 same fountain. 



If there are yet those who need to ask what is the 

 object of this practical, interesting and sublime science, 

 they can be informed that it means a descriptiojytf the 

 earth; and is hence nearly allied to geography. Both v 

 sciences have not however the same province. They 

 do not describe the earth in the same points. Geogra- 

 phy, not only describes the great divisions and natural 

 features of the earth, but the political and civil divisions, 



