UTILITY AND INTEREST OF GEOLOGY. 207 



prove beneficial in his section. So also if he wishes 

 to buy land in a distant region, and has no definite 

 knowledge as to its character; he may determine its 

 probable quality at once, from a good geological map. 

 If he has cultivated the soil of some particular forma- 

 tion, till he has come to like it, and to know better 

 how to cultivate it than any other; he may in the 

 same manner learn where to find for himself, or for 

 his children, the same kind of land in some other dis- 

 trict. 



I may observe in conclusion, that while Geology is 

 thus practically useful, it also is among the most in- 

 teresting of sciences; for it takes us back through 

 ages that are past, and lays open the early history of 

 our globe, with its silent, yet speaking, records of ex- 

 tinct races, and of sudden overwhelming changes. 



Nothing in this world can give such an idea of an- 

 tiquity, as one of these fossils that I have mentioned; 

 the remains of a fish, or a shell, from some of the 

 lower stratified rocks. We are accustomed to think of 

 the pyramids as ancient; but this creature enjoyed 

 life, and fulfilled its part in the animated world, at 

 a period which brings the pyramids, in comparison, 

 down to things of yesterday. Since it died, race after 

 race, in gradual progression, has occupied the seas 

 and the land; has in its turn been sooner or later 

 swept away, to make a part of some new formation. 

 Wide seas or rapid torrents have rolled over its 

 resting place; and then again by a new chaage, it 

 has supported the immense growth of some old fossil 

 forest on dry land, which, in its turn overwhelmed, 

 gave place to other seas, containing still other forms 

 of life. 



After all these unnumbered centuries of revolution, 

 it comes forth to the gaze of man upon the earth, which 

 in its day and generation it helpexl to prepare for his 



