THE OBJECTS AND USES OF THIS WORK. 



1. FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT GEOLOGISTS. 



The United States are intersected by numerous railroads leading in all 

 directions, and nearly every one has occasion more or less to travel on them for 

 considerable distances. In these railway journeys no person who has the least 

 power of observation can fail to notice the peculiarities in the scenery and the 

 great variety in the formations of rock to be seen in the railway cuts and 

 cropping out on the hillsides. If we always had a professor of geology for our 

 traveling companion, we would be glad to learn from him what these various 

 formations of rock are, what place they occupy in the series of strata that 

 are visible on the earth's surface, and their mineral and other productions ; also at 

 what other localities the same rocks occur, and whether they are entirely new to 

 us or the same we have seen elsewhere. This work is a substitute for the supposed 

 traveling professor of geology, giving in a small space the names of the geological 

 formations which occur along the lines of the railroads, and in another part of the 

 book is to be found a plain but full description of each of them. There are also 

 foot notes directing attention to interesting geological places and objects on the 

 routes of the railroads. One object of the work is to teach persons not versed in 

 geology something of this science during the tedious and unprofitable hours of 

 traveling, without study, not as in a text book, but by pointing to the things 

 themselves as seen at railway stations and through the windows of a railway car. 



No person could be so stupid as to travel all over the United States without 

 learning the name of a single state or city through which he passes, yet how few 

 persons know even the names of the geological formations on which they have 

 spent their lifetimes. Every one is taught geography, and there is scarcely a child 

 of sufficient age who cannot tell the name of the town, county and state in which 

 he lives. But geology, which is just as well worth knowing, is neglected, and 

 there is but little opportunity for learning any thing practically in regard to it 

 from those about us. This is not owing to a want of a desire for knowledge, but 

 to a want of instruction in this science, and of the practical application of what 

 is learned by adding local geological information in a handy, cheap and accessible 

 form, and this, which no other work affords, it is the aim of this book to furnish. 



There are some kinds of knowledge too that cannot be obtained from books, 

 but must be gathered by actual observation. The inspection of a formation in 

 nature, which is pointed out to you, will teach you more in regard to it in a few 

 minutes than you could learn from lectures or from reading books in as many 

 hours, and the lesson so received will be better remembered. This book is intended 

 as an intelligent guide to such observations. It tells you where the various 

 formations are, and you can then see for yourself in traveling what they are. 



M365025 



