108 THE OPEN BOOK OF NATURE 
(awful word !) paleontology. It is a glorious thing 
to ramble about the country with an object in view, 
and always in the expectation of making a new dis- 
covery. As students of rocks and fossils you will 
have inducements to go out of doors and inhale the 
wholesome breezes ; you will find health, recreation, 
and knowledge. Even if you have no companions 
with you you will find “sermons in stones,” and 
the rocks will tell you their story. Alone, you 
will not be lonely, and the hours will fly by all too 
quickly. 
I began my Nature-study when I was very young, 
and it has never failed to provide me with delight. 
Often the business of life has held me in densely 
populated cities, and compelled me to breathe the 
polluted air of manufacturing towns. I know, too, 
the joy of the city and the pleasures of culture, art, 
and intellectual friendships, but I have never lost 
taste for the open country, nor the satisfaction of a 
lonely excursion. Along with me you will feel the 
longing of the poet : 
“Oh, for a breath of the moorland, 
A glimpse of the mountain grey ; 
For the thyme and the fragrant myrtle, 
That scent the wanderer’s way !” 
May you often find yourselves in such a place 
as the poet Crabbe describes : 
“Tt is a lonely place, and at the side 
Rises a mountain in rugged pride ; 
And in that rock are shapes of shells, and forms 
Of creatures in old worlds, and nameless worms ; 
Whole generations lived and died, ere man, 
A worm of other class, to crawl began.” 
