INTRODUCTION. 
The present age is distinguished by many of the most extraordinary discoveries that 
were ever unfolded to the human mind ; and amongst them the discoveries in 
Chemistry stand pre-eminent. The most extensively useful part of this science has, 
however, been long before the Public, and contributed greatly to the improvement 
of various branches of manufacture ; but the benefits of Chemistry have not yet been 
extended to the soil. 
Agriculture in this, as in most other instances, is the last to profit by any thing 
new. That easy analysis of the soil, which seemed to promise great advantages to 
the Farmer, by telling him correctly the component parts of the materials he has to 
work upon, has not been spread through the country, or even yet become an object 
of attention with many ot the best informed Farmers, by whom the advantages of 
this science must be carried into effect ; and while the theory is in the possession of 
one class of men, and the practice in another, who have little or no connexion, it is 
greatly to be feared, that the culture of land may long remain without its expected 
benefits from Chemistry. 
In a similar way, also, the benefits resulting from the science of Botany, have 
been equally limited, and likely to. remain so, until those who grow the grasses shall 
take the trouble to distinguish one from another, or until those who know them 
scientifically shall condescend to become the cultivators. 
Nature furnishes the clue to each of these sciences, and to the most extensive 
application of their benefits. 
She has also given the Farmer other more easy helps, to much of the useful 
knowledge he requires. 
The method of knowing the Substrata from each other by their various substances 
imbedded, will consequently shew the difference in their soils. —-All this is attainable 
by rules the most correct, and easily learnt, and also the simplest and most extensive 
that can well be devised; for by the help of organized Fossils alone, a science is 
established with characters on which all must agree, as to the extent of the Strata in 
which they are imbedded, those characters are universal ; and a knowledge of them 
opens the most extensive sources of information, without the necessity of deep 
reading, or the previous acquirement of difficult arts. 
The organized Fossils (which might be called the antiquities of Nature,) and their 
localities also, may be understood by all, even the most illiterate : for they are so 
fixed in the earth as not to be mistaken or misplaced ; and may be as readily referred 
to in any part of the course of the Stratum which contains them, as in the cabinets 
of the curious; and, consequently, they furnish the best of all clues to a knowledge, 
of the Soil and Substrata. 
