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sure, the want of some object in view has often deprived the 
tourist of much of his expected gratification. In the oft- 
visited district of the Cumbrian Lakes — in the mountainous 
tracts of Wales, and the Highlands of Scotland — in short, 
in every mountain chain, and in every valley immediately 
descending from thence, the observer, who will look for 
evidences of former glacial action, may find at once a curious 
source of occupation and interest, and add to the stock of 
geological knowledge by new facts illustrative of the direction 
of the supposed glacial action, or of important conditions 
under which the surface of the earth has assumed its present 
form. 
If any further apology were required for calling attention 
to the subject, it is to be found in a conviction that an atten- 
tive study of natural phenomena is the only sure path of 
philosophical investigation; and, however void of practical 
utility any discovery may at first appear, it is impossible to 
tell to what important results it may eventually lead. Who 
could have foreseen an acquaintance with the minutest won- 
ders of the heavens from the child of a spectacle - maker 
amusing itself with convex glasses! — the marvellous results 
of steam machinery, from the steam issuing from a kettle ! — 
or the illumination of our towns, from burning a piece of coal 
in the bowl of a tobacco pipe ? One ingenious contriver of 
a steam ship was advised by a former President of the Royal 
Society to employ his time on some practicable scheme, and 
not on a visionary speculation ; and thus it is, that the sus- 
picion and distrust with which any novelty is commonly 
received, has tended to damp inquiry and retard science. 
I have been assured by that eminent geologist, the Rev. 
W. D. Conybeare, that his early investigation of the more 
recent strata of this kingdom, and especially of the Portland 
Oolite, &c., was treated as an idle occupation of time, and 
as leading to no useful purpose ; whereas the progress of 
