OBJECTS AtfD USES OF THIS WORK. 



3. FOR USEFUL, PRACTICAL PURPOSES. 



To those who take only utilitarian views and care nothing for pure science, 

 and to all those in any way interested in the country, a means is here furnished for 

 ascertaining the natural advantages or disadvantages of any district -where there is 

 a railroad, for it is now pretty well known to all intelligent persons that the 

 capabilities or resources of a country, what it is and what it can become, depend 

 chiefly on its geology. 



No one in our day can doubt, that there is a definite and orderly arrangement 

 of the rocks, that it is only in certain rocks that certain useful materials and minerals 

 are to be obtained, and that the soil of each formation has a certain fixed value for 

 agriculture. It was long ago shown that a geological map of England, is a map 

 also of the distribution of its manufactures. Even the kind of people inhabiting 

 a district, often depends on its geology. A considerable portion of the work of 

 geologists, is devoted to tracing out the distribution of the various formations as 

 they come out from beneath one another, and spread over the face of the country. 

 This book is made up of a minute tabular statement or division of all places on 

 the American railways, into classes, some of which yield useful materials or pro- 

 ductions peculiar to them. It points out the limits to be observed in searching out 

 new locations producing any material. Besides, if accompanied by a correct 

 scientific knowledge of the country, it will make any man's discovery of anything 

 useful available to his neighbors in hundreds of other places, over the whole 

 region covered by the same formation. 



The physical structure of a country being then, the means by which we can 

 learn the range and distribution of useful materials, a strict attention to fossils is 

 necessary, to enable us to determine the relative position of rock groups, each 

 group, within certain limits, holding its own peculiar fossil forms, and certain 

 economic products being confined, over wide areas, either wholly or principally to 

 certain rocks. Many persons, ignorantly confounding the means with the end, 

 think geologists are good authorities upon fossils, but not as to the useful properties 

 of the formations. Sir William E. Logan, the great Canadian geologist, in answer 

 to this objection, once said : " I am not a naturalist ; I do not describe fossils, but 

 use them. They are the geologist's friends, who direct him in the way to what is 

 valuable. To get the necessary information from them, you must be able to 

 recognize their aspect, and in order to state your authority, you must give their 

 names. Some of them tell of coal they are cosmopolites ; while some give local 

 intelligence of gypsum, or salt, or building stone. One of them helped us last 

 year to trace out, in Canada, upwards of fifty miles of hydraulic limestone." 



But it is not practicable for ordinary readers to understand the difficult science 

 of paleontology ; all they can expect to know are the results as ascertained by 

 professional geologists, and those results are given in this little book, for every 

 place on every railroad in America. There are many other things that might have 

 been given, especially the structural geology of each State, geological maps, more 

 minute lists of elevations and general physical geography, but the book contains 

 enough for one little volume to be carried about on railway journeys. 



TOWANDA, Pa., 1878. JAMES MACFARLANE. 



Business Office, Syracuse, N.Y. 



