Its geology and mineralogy were the subjects of a detailed report made by me to the War Department in 1822.

One thought till lately that geology was a tentative science, hardly credited with the name of science, but Mr. Laing wisely and boldly classes it among the "exact sciences," whose subject-matter is "flint instruments, incised bones, and a few rare specimens of human skulls and skeletons, the meaning of which has to be deciphered by skilled experts."

But then it was a mystery which it was the business of mind to lay bare; and what more has science done in tracing the history and progress of this earth of ours, as written upon the rocks, among which geology has been so long delving?

I have tried to teach it you by geology, because geology is, perhaps, the simplest and the easiest of all physical sciences.

If any of my readers should be inclined to say to themselves: Geology may be a very pleasant study, but I have no special fancy for it.

Geology is, literally, the natural history of soils and lands; chemistry the natural history of compounds, organic and inorganic; meteorology the natural history of climates; astronomy the natural history of planetary and solar bodies.

Geology, economics, mechanics, are humanities when taught with reference to the successive achievements of the geniuses to which these sciences owe their being.