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 ajd 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 our 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 eontend that it is more 
important to transfer the New-Engjand character to 
the unsettled W^st, 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 wher« 
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 j 
moral power of New-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 *' Repoit on a Re-examinatioi) of the Econom- 
ical Geology of Massachusetts." It might, perhaps, be objected 
to his view of the subject, that if improving the soil increases j 
the " moral power" of a people, then where the soil is the rich- 
