THE RELATIONS OF OEOLOGY. 381 



plains of our oreat ai^riciiltural clistiicts — the lands, it may ])e, of peace 

 and plenty, but where life is so easy-g-oino- and so monotonous that 

 there is little incentive or opportunity to vary the established order 

 of thing's, and the local country life remains much the same genera- 

 tion after generation. Ret^ve(Ml these two exti'emes lie the areas 

 floored l)y the gently inclined rocks of our great coal lields, the theaters 

 of an incessant and fierce industrial struggle — a struggle that has its 

 reflection and its effects iu tii(^ restless energy and the determined 

 advance of their inha])itants. 



What well-read geologist among us is notawai-e that ever}' Aariation 

 in the contour of our country, as it rises from the encircling seas that 

 have guarded our freedom, is dependent upon its geology ^ \Miere 

 the hard rock formations reach the seaboard, project the bold head- 

 land and its clift's. Where the soft rocks come down to the shore line, 

 open out the lu'oad })ays. Where the highly resistant rocks are lifted 

 up in broad mass and face the wild ocean, we find a shore land of 

 rugged clifl'^ and wild inlets, inhabited only by a few hardy tishermen. 

 Where the easily yielding rocks have been depressed in mass by geo- 

 logical movements, we have the long withdrawing estuary, alive with 

 the ships of connuerce moving to and fro from the busy and populous 

 seaport at it^^ head. 



Or, tur-ning inland and looking over the general aspect of the country, 

 we recognize every whei'c not only the paramount influence of the 

 geological formations and geological conditions on the scenery and the 

 relief of the land, but we trace everywhere the persistent eflects of 

 these conditions upon the past and present of the people. All the 

 'activities of struggling humanity, in the contest for the bare necessi- 

 ties of existence, for mutual protection, for trade and for progress 

 have been limited and controlled by the natural ))Ounds marked out by 

 the unvarying geological factors. The original sites of almost every 

 city and town, village and handet, ancient castle and modern mansion 

 were all determined practically by geological considerations. The 

 sites of the old fortresses were fixed by the places of the more or less 

 inaccessible clifl's and scarps, the position of the villages and hamlets 

 by the abundance of the springs, and the settlement of the lands by 

 the comparative richness of the soils. All down the long str(>am of 

 history the successive waves of invasion, the I'bl) and flow of con- 

 quering armies, the tracks of inland trade and conununication, from 

 the time of the Roman ways, through the roads of the middle ages 

 and later, down to the main threads of the network of railways of the 

 present day, have all more oi' less followed the same general courses, 

 courses determined l)y the geographical phenomena consequent upon the 

 geological structure of the land. 



It is idle to pursue these matters further or recall how all the 

 variations 'n scenery and scenic beaut}' arc dependent upon geological 



