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substrata, the rocks and clays beneath, and in short the 
sreolog-ical structure of the district, is matter of information, 
the value of which is now becoming more and more appre- 
ciated, and fresh discoveries of the relations existing be- 
tween chemistry and agriculture may render an intimate 
knowledge of geological structure still more important. 
Railway cuttings afford this species of information in the 
most satisfactory manner, but they afford it only for a time. 
Even in an agricultural point of view it is worth the 
attention of the landowner to preserve such a record. 
What now appears merely interesting, may, in a more 
advanced state of science, be important, and carefully pre- 
served sections may form a body of evidence indicating 
the direction in which drift has been carried, and thus 
leading to further generalizations connected with the 
sources whence the soil has been derived; for, as Professor 
Sedgwick has justly observed, it is not so much a know- 
ledge of the geological structure lying beneath him, as 
a knowledge of the general law which has prevailed 
when the soils, or the materials which compose them, 
were distributed over the face of the country, that will 
benefit the agriculturist. Occasions may often arise when 
the agriculturist would gladly ascertain the general nature 
and disposition of the stratification ; and the preservation of 
railway sections, in a local museum, would afford much 
valuable information of this kind. They would open to 
every farmer, in the vicinity of a railway cutting, an 
opportunity of learning a practical lesson in geology ; and 
many, who from want of information or other causes, 
cannot now derive benefit from the actual sections on the 
sides of a railway cutting, may a few years hence appre- 
ciate the value of this information, and deeply deplore 
that the opportunity is lost for ever. 
If railway sections are interesting and valuable, as indi- 
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