478 Reports and Proceedings — Prof. Green's Address. 



■without constant reference to certain branches of geology. Again how many are the 

 points of contact between the history of nations, the distribution and migrations of 

 peoples, and the geological structures of the lands they have dwelt in or marched over. 



Hut geology is not an easy subject to teach in schools.. The geology of the 

 ordinary text-book does not commend itself to the boy-mind. The most neatly- 

 drawn sections, nay, even the most graphic representations of gigantic and uncouth 

 extinct animals, come home to the boy but little, because they are pictures and not 

 things. He wants something that he can handle and pull about ; he does not 

 refuse to use his head, but he likes to have also something that will employ his 

 hands at the same time. 



The kind of geology that boys would take to is outdoor work ; and, of course, 

 where it can be had, nothing better could be given them. A difficulty is that 

 field work takes time and filches away a good deal of the intervals that are devoted 

 to games. Still cross-country rambles and scrambling about quarries and cliffs are 

 not so very different from a paper-chase ; and if the teacher will only infuse into 

 the work enough of the fun and heartiness which come so naturally in the open 

 air, he need not despair of luring even the most high-spirited boy, every now and 

 then, away from cricket and football. 



But there are localities not a few — the Fen country, for instance - where it is 

 scarcely possible to find within manageable distance of the school the kind of field- 

 geology which is within the grasp of a beginner. But even here the teaching need 

 not be wholly from books. The best that can be done in such cases is to make 

 object-lessons indoors its basis. For instance, give a lad a lump of coarsish sand- 

 stone ; let him pound it and separate by elutriation the sand grains from the clay ; 

 boil both in acid, and dissolve off the rusty coating that colours them ; ascertain 

 by the microscope that the sand grams are chips and not rounded pellets, and so 

 on. All such points he will delight to worry out for himself ; and, when he has 

 done that, an explanation of the way in which the rock was formed will really 

 come home to him. Or it is easy to rig up contrivances innumerable for illustrating 

 the work of denudation. A heap of mixed sand and powdered clay does for the rock 

 denuded ; a watering-can supplies rain ; a trough, deeper at one end than the other, 

 stands for the basin that receives sediment. By such rough apparatus many of the 

 results of denudation and deposition may be closely imitated, and the process is near 

 enough to the making of mud-pies to command the admiration of every boy. It is 

 by means like these that even indoor teaching of geology may be made lifelike. 



I need not dwell upon the great facts of physical geology which have so important 

 a bearing on geography and history; but I would, in passing, just note that these 

 too often admit of experimental illustration, such for instance as the well-known 

 method of imitating the rock folding caused by earth-movements. 1 would add 

 that wherever in speaking of school teaching, i have used the word "boy," that 

 word must of course be taken to include " girl " as well. 



In conclusion I should like to give you an outline of the kind of course I 

 endeavour to adopt in more advanced teaching in the case of students who are 

 working at other subjects as well and can give only a part of their time to geology. 

 During the first year the lectures and bookwork should deal with physical geology. 

 In the laboratory the student should first make the acquaintance of the commoner 

 rock-forming minerals, the means of recognizing them by physical characters, 

 blowpipe tests, and the simpler methods of qualitative analysis, and may then go on 

 to work at the commoner kinds of rocks and the elements of microscopic petrography. 

 During the summer months 1 would take him into the field, but not do more than 

 impress upon him some of the broader aspects of outdoor work, such as the con- 

 nection between physical feature and geological structure. 



During a second year stratigraphical geology should be lectured upon and studied 

 from books, and so much of animal morphology as may be necessary for palaeonto- 

 logical purposes should be mastered. The practical work would lie mainly among 

 fossils, with a turn every now and again at mineralogy and petrology to keep these 

 subjects going. Out of doors I would not yet let the student attempt geological 

 mapping, but would put into his hands a geological map and descriptions of the 

 geology of his neighbourhood, and he would be called upon to examine in minute 

 detail all accessible sections, collect and determine fossils, and generally see how far 

 he can verify by his own work the observations of those who have gone before him. 



Indoor work during the third year would be devoted to strengthening and widening 



