)l 
GEOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS. 
planet during the future eras of its physical 
history. It may be described, in a more com- 
pendious manner, as the investigation into the 
structure of the earth, and the, nature of the 
animals and vegetables which have existed on 
the surface. Geology, therefore, is intimately 
connected with every branch of natural 
history. The author treats of it in its con- 
nexion with the various arts and sciences, 
and has unquestionably succeeded in making 
the path more clear to the young student 
than any of the more elaborate writers. We 
shall perhaps illustrate this point best, by 
quoting a portion of the third chapter, in 
which he gives first lessons in Geology, and 
shows the harmony of the science with reve- 
lation, a fact which has been doubted by 
learned divines, who have almost refused to 
enter upon the subject, and therefore con- 
demned it blindly. Nevertheless, there are 
those, who, not content with restraining the 
science within sound and proper limits, run 
and write wildly, and by their enthusiasm do, 
as with many meddlers in other sciences, infi- 
nite mischief to the cause which they pretend to 
espouse, and to the advance of the study itself. 
The author, in the same chapter, then leads 
us to the evidences of the extreme antiquity 
of the earth itself ; and, briefly accounting for 
its present appearance and its structure, gives 
a very neat, and easily understood, outline 
of the whole science. Our first quotation, 
therefore, will be from this chapter, as the 
best and most useful to those who have never 
studied the subject at all : — 
" Harmony of the Science with Eeve- 
lation. — Among the most valuable and 
most satisfactory of these must be enumerated 
the conviction, which its very earliest inquiries 
serve to convey, of the perfect harmony of 
the science with revelation, and the groundless 
nature of those fears which many well-mean- 
ing but mistaken persons so needlessly enter- 
tain of the possibility of a collision between 
the two. This gratifying circumstance of the 
accordance of both will form the theme of too 
frequent and ample illustration, during the 
following pages, to require more than a casual 
mention here ; and it may suffice to dispel the 
fears of those who may cherish such unneces- 
sary apprehensions, if we state, that, in all 
essential points, — and we would particularly 
instance the date of the creation of man, — we 
find the records of Scripture fully and com- 
pletely confirmed by the evidence of physical 
fact. Nay, we may go farther, and add that 
this admirable study, so far from lessening our 
belief in the Deity, or our perception of His 
attributes, cannot but tend materially to 
enhance and confirm our appreciation of both. 
A science, the professed object of which is to 
enlarge and increase our knowledge of cre- 
ation, cannot but expand and exalt, in a 
commensurate degree, our admiration of the 
Creator."— Pp. 82, 83. 
From this the author proceeds to demonstrate 
— and he does it cleverly — the instructive na- 
ture of the science ; and it is one of his promi- 
nent qualifications for the task, that lue carries 
the reader along with him, by the simple 
and straightforward way in which he conveys 
his instruction and information. He says : — 
" Geology has this, in common with all the 
studies of nature, that it teaches the unphiloso- 
phical character of our habitual ideas and 
impressions, and warns us to doubt even the 
evidence of our senses, until it is proved by 
scientific investigation to be true. Thus, 
while astronomy begins by convincing us, that 
the sun which we see to rise in the east, and to 
set in the west, performs, in fact, no revolution 
at all, but that the apparently unmoving earth 
it is which really performs the daily round ; 
so geology commences her instructions with 
truths not less, but even more repugnant to 
our preconceived sentiments and opinions. 
It unfolds the fact, that the present condition 
of our earth, far from being of primeval date 
and character, as is not unfrequently supposed, 
constitutes but one of the numerous vicissi- 
tudes through which it has passed in the course 
of its eventful history. The mountains which 
we deem of antiquity coeval with the earth 
itself ; the hills which in our phraseology are 
" old," to a proverb ; this science convinces 
us, are of very different dates, and have all, 
geologically speaking, been elevated at com- 
paratively modern periods. Again, from the 
earliest times it has been the habit of man to 
associate the idea of stability with the land ; 
and of fluctuation and change of level with 
the sea. Geology, however, demonstrates the 
very reverse of this to be the truth, and shows 
that while the land has undergone changes and 
disturbances the most violent and revolution- 
ary, and has been the scene of elevation and 
depression, of intrusion and dislocation, on the 
most extensive scale ; the sea, from its very 
nature, as a fluid, must have constantly 
maintained the same unaltered level. The 
stones and rocks, which we habitually regard 
as having ever been the hard, refractory, and 
unyielding objects which we behold them now; 
science, by the external characters which they 
bear, by the gentle impressions of organic 
structure which they present — by the tender 
foliage of the plant — the delicate markings of 
the shell — proves to have been thus imprinted 
when their substance was soft and soluble, and 
by this means convinces us that all stone, all 
rock, whatever now is hard, once was in the 
state of sand, of mud, or of fluid. These are 
but a few of the numerous instances which 
might be adduced, of the valuable and instruc- 
