FAVORABLE LOCATION. 21 



region, numberless abandoned diggings and deserted shafts 

 tell of the useless expenditure and loss of capital that easily 

 might have been avoided. In other cases the same tests ap- 

 plied would indicate the presence of valuable deposits in locali- 

 ties where they were little suspected. 



Of late years the sciences have held an important place 

 in the educational curriculum. Their role in training the phy- 

 sical, intellectual and ethical powers of the human mind for 

 the attainment of pure culture, in its broadest sense, is now- 

 admitted universally to be second to none. For a long time 

 the scientific branches which could be taught indoors held 

 preference, for obvious reasons. But rapidly the field broad- 

 ened. Botany and zoology soon became popular; and in a less 

 degree also geology. The latter did not receive the attention 

 that it might and should. Probably on account of a lack of 

 satisfactory local information, on the one hand, and partly by 

 reason of unfavorable situations, on the other, geological in- 

 struction in the schools of the country has been neglected to 

 a greater or less extent. In some places, however, considera- 

 ble activity has manifested itself in the study ; and its value 

 has begun to be duly appreciated in the stimulation of the 

 imagination, in the development of the youthful faculties for 

 observation, and in the extension of the cultural powers of the 

 intellect. 



Kow the State of Missouri is one of the most favored pro- 

 vinces in all the great Mississippi basin for the study of geo- 

 logical phenomena. A wide range of geological formations is 

 represented, from the earliest or Cambrian to the close of the 

 Paleozoic. All the larger towns and cities present unusually 

 fine opportunities for studying the historical side of the ques- 

 tion. The numerous railroad cuttings, the many quarries, and 

 the extensive natural exposures along the deeply cut streams, 

 afford good sections of the various layers. Scarcely any of 

 these places do not contain fossils ; and usually there is a great 

 abundance of both species and individuals. These advanta- 

 geous localities have already awakened an interest in the inves- 

 tigation of local geological features, and, as just intimated, there 



