23 



DEPARTMENT 



OF 



GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 



Every intelligent person must desire to know something of 

 " the ground "beneath us/' — what, for instance, is the nature 

 of the layers of chalk and limestone, .coal, sandstone, clay, or 

 slate, which occur in the various ^districts of our own Island, 

 giving to each its special features of mountain, hill or valley, 

 plateau or plain, forest, meadow, moorland, or moss ; what is 

 their origin, and, how came they to be formed as we see them 

 to-day. To seek out the answers to these and many other 

 kindred questions forms the province of the Geologist. 



At one time Geology and Mineralogy were associated 

 together as one science, and rocks were only classified according 

 to their physical characters and composition ; but at the end of 

 the last century an intelligent land surveyor, named William 

 Smith, discovered that the several strata composing the earth's 

 crust might be identified all over the country by means of 

 the fossils they contained, and that certain organisms were 

 more or less peculiar to each. Filled with this idea, he 

 travelled on foot througli every county in England and Wales, 

 and in 1815 he published his large Geological map, and also 

 a work entitled " Strata identified by Organised Fossils/' 

 illustrated by fossils collected by himself. This collection of 

 fossils, made by William Smith, is still preserved in the 

 British Museum. From this time a new branch of study 

 connected with Geology arose, called Palaeontology, or the study 

 of the ancient life-forms, whose remains lie buried as petrifac- 

 tions in the rocks composing the crust of the earth. This 

 science of Palaeontology has become so very important to the 



