PREFACE 
vi 
as guides, and I hope this effort of mine will serve 
in that capacity. 
In writing, I have given the reader credit for 
intelligence and earnestness. I do not think 
youngsters like to be spoken to in namby-pamby 
terms, and treated as babies. 
Although necessity has compelled me to touch 
but the fringe of the various subjects | have alluded 
to, I hope this book will not be regarded as favour- 
able to desultory study. Superficial knowledge is 
one of the evils of the age. I stand for thoroughness, 
and I trust that, if any reader is induced by my 
words to take up a particular line of Nature investi- 
gation, he will be patient and persevering therein. 
There is no disguising the fact that there is no royal 
road to Nature knowledge : it can be acquired only 
by the exercise of brains and the patient labour of 
years. I should be sorry if any reader were to 
accept this volume as a compendium of Nature. 
While I have doubtless given some information, I 
have aimed at showing how much there is to know, 
and what a vast field the student has before him. 
I have purposely given prominence to the subject 
of Geology in the following pages. Geology has 
received scant notice in many popularly written 
modern Nature books: it demands a wider recog- 
nition. Perhaps it does not lend itself to popular 
exposition. However, I trust the simple chapters 
I have devoted to Geology and the study of fossils 
will bear fruit in an accession of young students. 
