214 INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. 



like all countries, alluvial depositions. While New- 

 England produces granite, marble, and other build- 

 ing materials of excellent quality, Pennsylvania, 

 with the Western, and several of the Southern and 

 Southwestern states, supplies inexhaustible maga- 

 zines of coal, to prompt and sustain the manufac- 

 turing interests of this wide country, and to aid its 

 astonishing navigation by steam, already of unex- 

 ampled extent on its internal waters, and destined 

 at no distant day to compete on the main ocean in 

 amicable rivalry with oar parent country." The 

 following remarks of Professor Hitchcock are based 

 upon the same established truths, that the character 

 of a people is affected by the geological structure 

 of the country. " Some may contend that it is more 

 important to transfer the New-England character to 

 the unsettled West, thus to multiply our numbers 

 and wealth at home. But the history of the world 

 leads us to fear that the New-England character 

 cannot long be preserved except upon New-England 

 soil, or upon a soil that requires great industry for 

 its cultivation. Place New-England men where 

 the earth yields spontaneously, and the locks of 

 their strength will soon be«shorn. If we look over 

 the map of the world and the history of the past, 

 we shall find, as a general fact, that the brightest 

 exhibitions of human character have been made in 

 regions where nature has done less, but art and in- 

 dustry more. If, therefore, we wish to increase the 

 moral power of Nev^^-England, it must be done by 

 improving her soil, and increasing her resources and 

 population. If these views are correct, which, I ac- 

 knowledge, do not fall in with the prevailing notions, 

 they furnish a new stimulus for vigorous effort in 

 the improvement of our soils."* The truth of these 



* Hitchcock's " Report on a Re-examination of the Econom- 

 ical Geology of Massachusetts," It might, perhap-s, be objected 

 to his view of the subject, that if improving the soil increases 

 the " moral power" of a people, then where the soil is the rich- 



