30 TOWN GEOLOGY. [i. 



nificent epic poem, were there only any human interest 

 in it; did it deal with creatures more like ourselves than 

 stones, and bones, and the dead relics of plants and 

 beasts. Whether there be no human interest in 

 geology; whether man did not exist on the earth 

 during ages which have seen enormous geological 

 changes, is becoming more and more an open question. 



But meanwhile all must agree that there is matter 

 enough for interest nay, room enough for the free use 

 of the imagination, in a science which tells of the 

 growth and decay of whole mountain-ranges, continents, 

 oceans, whole tribes and worlds of plants and animals. 



And yet it is not so much for the vastness and 

 grandeur of those scenes of the distant past, to which 

 the science of geology introduces us, that I value it as a 

 study, and wish earnestly to awaken you to its beauty 

 and importance. It is because it is the science from 

 which you will learn most easily a sound scientific 

 habit of thought. I say most easily; and for these 

 reasons. The most important facts of geology do 

 not require, to discover them, any knowledge of mathe- 

 matics or of chemical analysis; they may be studied in 

 every bank, every grot, every quarry, every railway- 

 cutting, by anyone who has eyes and common sense, 

 and who chooses to copy the late illustrious Hugh 

 Miller, who made himself a great geologist out of a 

 poor stonemason. Next, its most important theories 

 are not, or need not be, wrapped up in obscure Latin 

 and Greek terms. They may be expressed in the 

 simplest English, because they are discovered by 

 simple common sense. And thus geology is (or ought 

 to be), in popular parlance, the people's science the 

 science by studying which, the man ignorant of Latin, 



