4 INTRODUCTION. 
of our population, their varied occupations, 
and the fundamental sources of their industry 
and wealth, depend, in a great degree, upon 
the geological character of the strata on which 
they live. Their physical condition also, as 
indicated by the duration of life and health, 
depending on the more or less salubrious 
nature of their employments; and their moral 
condition, as far as it is connected with these 
employments, are directly affected by the geolo- 
gical causes in which their various occupa- 
tions originate. 
From this example of our own country, we 
learn that the same constituent materials of the 
of the chalk, from near Briclport on the coast of Dorset, to 
Flamborough Head on the coast of Yorkshire. 
In the same line of direction, or line of bearing of the strata 
across England, a journey might be made from Lyme Regis to 
Whitby, almost entirely upon the lias formation ; and from 
Weymouth to the Humber, without once leaving the Oxford clay. 
Indeed almost any route, taking a north-east and south-west 
direction across England, will for the most part pass continu- 
ously along the same formation ; whilst a line from south-east to 
north-west, at right angles to the former, will nowhere continue 
on the same stratum beyond a few miles. Such a line will give 
the best information of the order of superposition, and various 
conditions of the very numerous strata, that traverse our island in 
a succession of narrow belts, the main direction of which is nearly 
north-east and south-west. This line has afforded to Mr. Co- 
nybeare the instructive section, from Newhaven near Brighton, 
to Whitehaven, published in his Geology of England and 
Wales ; along which nearly seventy changes in the character of 
the strata take place. 
