GEOLOGY AS PART OF A COLLEGE CURRICULUM. 43 



The fossil is a mark which stands for something, and thus, 

 in the nature of things, it asks for interpretation. As a symbol 

 it stimulates minute and accurate observation, and kindles close 

 and exhaustive thought ; as a symbol it leaves us the ideas it 

 has engendered after it is lost to memory as. an observation. 

 Thus the value of its study does not depend upon the reten- 

 tion in the memory of the facts brought before the mind, but in 

 the training of the mental processes required in its interpre- 

 tation. The study of this branch of geology exercises and 

 develops all the faculties which are specially exercised in any 

 scientific investigation. 



Another aspect in which it is an ideal means for such 

 training comes from the fact that it is equally valuable at 

 every stage of progress of the student. When first examined 

 it means nothing to him. He knows nothing of organism, 

 of strata, of geological time. The fossil gains meaning only 

 as he is able to put meaning into it. The student must 

 ask questions, and as step by step he answers his questions 

 by more minute and wider examination, the fossil holds a fuller 

 interpretation. His studies lead him to investigation of the 

 whole field of nature, the rocks, the formation of deposits, the 

 action of the elements, the conditions of life, the forms of organ- 

 ism, their functions and habits, the laws of growth, their adap- 

 tation to environment, the changes of events in time, the efforts 

 of association and struggle for life, the principles of evolution 

 and development — the migration and origin and extinction of 

 organisms on the globe. Nothing in nature is without interest 

 to him. Further than this the amount of good he gains is not 

 measured by the number of fossils he studies, but by the wideness 

 of his research. A handful of fossils from some one fossilifer- 

 ous ledge may be the text for a year's study, and the methods 

 acquired in the study may be the nucleus of a life's work. 

 In this department of geology the possibilities for new 

 discoveries, new developments of science are almost endless. 

 As a single author thoroughly read develops a wealth of knowl- 

 edge of the laws of language and thought, so geology may be 



