ADVANTAGES ARISING FROM ITS STUDY. 33 



of the crust, an acquaintance with that crust is indispen- 

 sable to their acquisition. Gold and silver, coal and iron, 

 genis and precious stones, are not scattered indiscriminate- 

 ly through the earth. Some occur more abundantly in one 

 formation than in another ; some in beds, others in veins ; 

 some exclusively in one kind of matrix, others in another ; 

 and all this knowledge as to abundance, depth of strata, 

 direction of veins, and the like, can only be acquired by a 

 study of the structure and arrangement of the rocky crust. 

 Geology has thus all the interest of a wondrous Past to 

 attract ; it possesses all the value of a sterling Present to 

 incite to its study and acquirement. To the general reader its 

 revelations of world-history will ever form themes of intel- 

 ligent attraction ; to the miner, the engineer, the architect, 

 and others whose business is to deal with the structure and 

 products of the rocky exterior, its deductions are of direct 

 and special importance. 



Such, once more, are the economic and intellectual ad- 

 vantages arising from a study of the structure of the crust 

 we dwell upon economic advantages of which our country, 

 in every department of its industry, is every day reaping 

 the benefit, and intellectual promptings which have led to 

 a newer and deeper insight into the laws and ordainings of 

 nature. We say newer and deeper insight, for with in- 

 creased knowledge of the past must extend our knowledge 

 of the present ; and the tendency of all true knowledge of 

 God's workings in nature must ever be to make men better, 

 wiser, and happier in all their relations to that nature of 

 which they form so prominent a part. Everything is 

 bound up one with another in the Divine scheme of the 

 universe ; and he who perceives this truth most fully in 

 the physical world is surely the most likely to regard it 

 in the intellectual and moral. On this ground alone, and 

 c 



