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No science lias advanced with more rapid steps than Geology } 

 nor is any other science daily attracting such an increasing share of 

 attention from all classes of society. Its popularity is due to its 

 wonderful revelations and its practical bearing on the felt wants of 

 the people. The history of the past would be unknown but for the 

 unlooked-for discoveries which Geology has lately achieved, while 

 the advantages arising from a correct knowledge of the internal 

 structure of our earth are so apparent that no one dares to question its 

 utility. 



A science so profoundly practical and so intensely interesting, — 

 rewarding research with its sublimest truths, — will never lack stu- 

 dents. And it becomes a matter of no secondary importance to provide 

 for their approaching the subject through the proper avenue. The 

 peculiar nature of the study, as well as the high place which it is 

 taking in our Institutions of learning, demands for it better and 

 increased appliances for illustration. For it is clear that in G-eology, 

 not less than the other Natural Sciences, something more is needed than 

 simple text-books or oral teaching. Visible, tangible objects can 

 alone meet this necessity, and give the student clear and correct 

 views. " I have satisfied myself long ago, (says Agassiz,) that the 

 grand and most elementary principles of our science are better un- 

 derstood when illustrated from nature than when explained in a more 

 abstract maner. In this way, each student is as it were, led to 

 go himself over the road through which science itself has passed in 

 its onward progress ; and, far from protracting his course, he soon 

 finds that he is brought without preamble into the very sanctuary 

 of science." 



Museums of nalural objects are becoming more and more a 

 recognized necessity. G-eological cabinets are multiplying in numbers 

 and increasing in size. In them the department of Palaeontology 

 is securing a prominent position, now that G-eologists more fully 

 appreciate the real value of fossil organisms, and regard them as 



