P R E F A C i: . 
/ 
A 'I’REA’risi-; of Astionoiiiy, adapted to the wants of the student living' 
upon one part of tlie earth’s surface, may be used with equal advan¬ 
tage in all countries. The same sun and planets, and with some ex¬ 
ceptions the same constellations, are seen in all the habitable regions 
of the globe. Every country of considerable extent, requires its own 
elementary treatise of Geology. For although the great doctrines of 
the science are every where the same, those proofs and illustrations 
will be most convincing and satisfactory, that are drawn from strata with 
which we have been long familiar, or which we may have an oppor¬ 
tunity of examining for ourselves. A greater extension will also be 
given to the account of the rocks of a particular age, in one country 
than in another; to the secondary strata in the State of’rcnnes.«ce ; to 
the primitive and tertiary, in North Carolina. 
The substance of the following treatise, has been read for some years 
to the senior class in the University, but this mode of acquiring a 
knowledge of the science not beiiig satisfactory, the book has been 
printed for their use, and is as large and full, as in the time allotted to 
this subject, can be studied with much ciTect. As the successive les¬ 
sons are illustrated in the lecture room, by the necessary plates and 
figures, none of these have been introduced ; but as these elements 
may find a few readers beyond the college walls, a map, exhibiting the 
position and extent of the different rock formations of North Caro¬ 
lina has been attached. It is only when the cultivators of this science 
shall have been greatly multiplied, and there shall be men in all parts 
of the country prepared to traverse it iti every direction, and verify every 
fact laid down by them, by repeated examinations, that the geology of 
the State will be mimitelv and accurately known. 
