44 THE JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY. 



studied by the use of a limited set of its phenomena and become 

 the introduction to the exhaustive study of natural science. 



Another advantage attaching to geology as a science -study 

 for the college curriculum, arises from the fact that it may be 

 pursued deeply without the elaborate aid to the senses required 

 in other sciences for making minute record or measurement of 

 facts or phenomena. As in language and mathematics, it is 

 essential to acquire a familiarity with the grammar, the diction- 

 ary and the symbols, formulas and rules of their usage before 

 the finer training in the use of thought begins, so the vocabulary 

 and the definitions of a science must be acquired before much 

 use can be made of the higher discipline to be derived from 

 scientific study. In language study this higher training comes 

 from practice in making the minute analysis, in detecting the 

 fine shades of meaning expressed in the literature itself. So it 

 is important in selecting a science to be used as a disciplinary 

 study that the facts and laws of nature with which it is concerned 

 should be capable of clear and precise definition, and, moreover, 

 that it should furnish a field for the study of the minute and 

 intricate relationship existing between the different facts which 

 are to be attained by personal inspection of the objects them- 

 selves. In most of the sciences this deeper exercise of scientific 

 thought requires for its successful pursuit artificial aids to the 

 common senses of observation. Chemistry must have its puri- 

 fied acids and reagents, test tubes, and delicate scales for 

 measurement of weight and volume. Mineralogy must have its 

 chemical analyses, or optical measurements so fine that micro- 

 scopes of highest power are essential tools for the investigation. 

 Physics must have the most delicate measurements of time 

 and space and weight. Botany, for the earlier stages of study, 

 is fully equal to geology in these respects, but its scope is much 

 less general. Zoology requires dissections calling for skill in 

 manipulation, and in other respects is ill adapted to general 

 classes. But precision in the intellectual processes of observa- 

 tion and reasoning can be cultivated in the use of geological 

 facts to their highest and widest perfection, with scarcely any 



