PREFACE. \[[ 



agriculturist ; but he cannot, in general, do so intelligently from 

 the results obtained in his laboratory alone, from a few specimens 

 desultorily collected by others, without reference to any rule, or 

 system of investigation ; which can be consistently carried out 

 only upon the scale of a public work, by State aid. 



While this, however, may justly be claimed at the hands of the 

 scientific investigator, it is asking nothing short of an impossibility, 

 when it is expected of him that ho should communicate the scien- 

 tific detail of his researches, in language intelligible to those not 

 previously acquainted with the fundamentals of the science. It 

 might as well be asked that he should teach a person to read, 

 without giving him the trouble of learning the letters of the 

 alphabet. 



It is veiy commonly and cheaply charged upon professional men 

 generally, and upon those cultivating the exact sciences in partic- 

 ular, that they have a perverse disposition to wrap up everything 

 known in an unintelligible, technical jargon, or " big words ", as 

 they are currently termed. It is expected of them that they should 

 develop new ideas (such as always result from the special study of 

 any subject), but that they should use no new terms in expressing 

 or communicating them ; which is simply impossible. No one can 

 expect to be taught, without learning ; let him catch the idea, and 

 it will matter little to him whether the word expressing the same 

 be Greek, Latin, or Chinese ; English terms, already possessing 

 definite meaning, cannot be used to express new ideas. If he 

 cannot take the time, or trouble, to learn the idea, he ought not to 

 complain if he cannot understand the term. 



In a practical point of view, it being undeniable that the fre- 

 quent recurrence of technical terms not familiar to the general 

 reader, will often deter the latter from attempting to read even 

 that which he can understand, I have thought it best to separate, 

 as much as possible, the purely scientific part from the purely 

 practical, so as to enable each one to select at once what is suited 

 to his taste and purpose. I have for this reason, separated the 

 geological part from that descriptive of the agricultural features, 

 connecting the two, however, by copious references, and even 

 repeating in brief, at times, in the latter part, important points in 

 the geology of the country, already given in the former part, and 

 more fully discussed there. In the geological part itself, I have 



