VACATION RAMBLES 259 



called betimes to natural phenomena. Any kind of 

 nature-knowledge will brighten a ramble abroad, but, 

 according to my experience, geology and botany are best 

 of all. 



The geological structure of a new country can be in 

 some measure appreciated, though of course it cannot 

 be set down, during a rapid traverse. Much else turns 

 upon geological structure, which governs not only the 

 elevation of the land, its accessibility, the nature and 

 position of the commanding points, but even in some 

 degree the genius and temper of the inhabitants. History 

 is largely affected by geography, and geography in turn 

 by rock-structure. Geology abounds in the kind of 

 questions to which the traveller can profitably bend his 

 mind questions not too special or minute for a man 

 whose thoughtful hours are few and precarious, and who 

 can carry few books along with him. A decent provision 

 of maps, such local descriptions as can be picked up in 

 the nearest city, a geological hammer, and if possible, a 

 practised eye, are the chief requisites ; they are all 

 portable. 



Let a man survey the Campagna from the windows of 

 the Vatican, if he can get no nearer. He will wonder at 

 the little towns, each perched upon its own steep and 

 isolated hill, that start out of the sea-like plain. It is 

 geological observation which tells him how these hills 

 come to be there, and without some tincture of geology 

 the hills themselves, the historical incidents which belong 

 to them, and even the paintings of Italian masters, in 

 which such hills are often delineated, may fail to impress 

 themselves adequately upon our attention. 



Or let a man visit Sweden, and observe the rounded 

 knolls, great and small, which are not mere heaps of loose 

 material, but bosses of solid rock, the perched boulders, 

 the innumerable lakes, the long mounds of sand and gravel, 

 and then ask himself why this kind of landscape, unknown 

 in southern lands, should pervade large tracts of Sweden, 



