
324 STRUCTURAL AND FIELD GEOLOGY 
conditions under which the fossil-bearing beds were laid 
down. He should be able, in short, to summon up a picture 
of the past. The more fully he has stored his mind with a 
knowledge of geological changes now in operation, and the 
more consistently he applies this knowledge towards the 
interpretation of the stony record, the better investigator 
must he become, and the more clearly and vividly will the 
dead past live again for him. It is this clothing of the dry 
bones with flesh, this reconstruction of long-vanished lands 
and seas, this repeopling of the world with types of life that 
have passed away for ever, this gradual unfolding of earth- 
history—it is this, perhaps more than all else, that fascinates 
the earnest student of geology. The “scientific imagination,” 
therefore, ought from the first to be stimulated by every 
observation one makes. Even within the limits of a single 
quarry one may often meet with evidence from which to 
reconstruct quite a number of interesting geological episodes. 
Small and unimportant the phenomena may seem to be, but 
the care bestowed on their interpretation will not be lost. 
Gradually, as we continue our investigations, our eyesight 
becomes sharpened; we not only see better than we did 
when we commenced, but are able eventually to take a wider 
outlook, and to piece together bits of evidence which at first 
might have appeared isolated and unconnected. From all 
which it is obvious that the observer who cultivates the 
scientific imagination is likely to produce a better and more 
reliable geological map than the cartographer who declines 
to look beyond the obvious facts. The former is on the way 
to become a shrewd generaliser and discoverer; the most the 
latter can hope to do is to provide materials for others with a 
wider outlook to work up and interpret. 
Geological Sections.—When the geologist has completed 
his map, he usually prepares one or more horizontal or profile 
sections to illustrate the general structure of the region. With 
an accurately constructed map, sections might often be dis- 
pensed with, since anyone who can read such a map could 
draw sections across it in any direction. ew maps, however, 
are large enough to show all the needful data, and the smaller 
and more generalised the map is, the more necessary do 
explanatory sections become. Two kinds of sections are con- 


