NECESSARY TO THE GEOLOGIST. 3 



its external structure in fact made familiar by the process, 

 and, if the system was worth anything, most of the leading 

 habits impressed upon the memory. The knowledge thus 

 acquired will be variously estimated, but still it has not been 

 gained without an exertion of the reasoning faculties which 

 many who deem it trifling are incapable of making, an ex- 

 ertion which repays itself in its tendency to strengthen habits 

 of attention, and check the discursive levity natural to the 

 untutored mind. This beneficial effect of systematic natural 

 history has been properly much insisted on by several recent 

 authors ; and if, which I grant to be the case, the exercise is 

 less effective for this purpose than the study of mathematics,* 

 yet to many who cannot overcome a distaste to these, or sur- 

 mount their difficulties, it comes recommended by its compara- 

 tive facility ; and there are here some concomitant allurements 

 to induce us to tread with a more constant purpose, the dry 

 paths of analysis : for while the imagination is kindled by the 

 task, and the mind kept in active attention, the eye is pleased 

 by the beauty of the objects under examination, the taste 

 gratified and improved by the contemplation of new struc- 

 tures, and a rational curiosity indulged when it seeks out the 

 purposes for which all is designed. It will then " be always 

 an amusement, gratifying, innocent, and instructive, to collect 

 the shells we meet in our walks on the sea-beach and else- 

 where ; to find out, by comparing them with their descriptive 

 catalogues, to what genus, and to what species of that genus, 

 they belong, and to arrange them accordingly. This habit 

 will introduce us to one portion of the great Temple of 

 created nature."-)- 



But the importance of Conchology, studied even in this 

 limited manner, has of late years received ample illustration. 

 The geologist is compelled ever and anon to descend from his 

 high speculations relative to the construction of this globe to 

 solicit material and support from the matter-of-fact concholo- 

 gist, whom he calls upon to determine the character and names 

 of the various shells which are found by millions in the rock, 

 to tell him of their probable habits, whether denizens of a 

 former sea or of fresh-water lakes, to tell him whether they 



* Milne-Edwards, whose opinion is entitled to much attention, does not 

 admit this : on the contrary, he says, " et, plus qu'aucune autre science, 

 1'histoire naturelle exerce notre intelligence dans la me"thode, partie de la 

 logique sans lequelle toute investigation est laborieuse et toute exposition 

 obscure." Elemens de Zoologie, p. 5. Paris, 1840. 



t Turner, Sac. History i. 302. On the advantages of the study of Na- 

 tural History, I would especially draw attention to a pamphlet, entitled, 

 " Natural History as a Branch of General Education," by my friend Robert 

 Patterson, of Belfast. 1840. 



B 2 



