BISECTIONS 



FOE 



COLLECTING SPECIMENS OE GEOLOGY AND 

 MINEEALOGY, 



FOR THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 

 BY C. KONIG, ESQ., KEEPER, OF THE MINERALOGICAL DEPARTMENT. 



THE following short directions being intended for the use of 

 such persons as are supposed to be entirely unpractised in 

 geology and mineralogy, all technical terms, the under- 

 standing of which pre-supposes an acquaintance with those 

 sciences, haye been carefully avoided ; as likewise, all refer- 

 ences to the relative order or superposition of rocks, and the 

 succession in which many of the materials to be collected 

 are known to be disposed with respect to each other. 



1. Common boulders, rolled pieces of rocks, or their frag- 

 ments, pebbles, &c., picked up at random, in situations of 

 no peculiar interest, are very seldom of any scientific utility ; 

 they had much better be left where they are, than made the 

 source of embarrassment to those who are expected to 

 arrange and incorporate them with objects of systematic 

 geological or mineralogical collections. But boulders, rolled 

 pieces, rubble-stones, and even gravel, sand, silt, and other 

 loose materials, may prove objects of real scientific import- 

 ance to the intelligent, although unscientific observer, in 

 proportion as the nature and mode of their occurrence are 

 ascertained, or appear to him to be connected with interest- 

 ing circumstances and questions; such as their probable 

 origin, and whether they may be considered as gradually 

 washed down from higher levels by rains, rivers, &c. ; or as 



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