Ebook The Geologist's Traveling Hand-Book

The United States are intersected by numerous railroads leading in all directions, and nearly every one has occasion more or less to travel on them for considerable distances. In these railway journeys no person who has the least power of observation can fail to notice the peculiarities in the scenery and the great variety in the formations of rock to be seen in the railway cuts and cropping out on the hillsides. If we always had a professor of geology for our traveling companion, we would be glad to learn from him what these various formations of rock are, what place they occupy in the series of strata that are visible on the earth's surface, and their mineral and other productions; also at what other localities the same rocks occur, and whether they are entirely new to us or the same we have seen elsewhere. This work is a substitute for the supposed traveling professor of geology, giving in a small space the names of the geological formations which occur along the lines of the railroads, and in another part of the book is to be found a plain but full description of each of them. There are also foot notes directing attention to interesting geological places and objects on the routes of the railroads. One object of the work is to teach persons not versed in geology something of this science during the tedious and unprofitable hours of traveling, without study, not as in a text book, but by pointing to the things themselves as seen at railway stations and through the windows of a railway car. N 0 person could be so stupid as t6 travel all over the United States without learning the name of a single state or city through which he passes, yet how few persons know even the names of the geological formations on which they have spent their lifetimes. Every one is taught geography, and there is scarcely a child of sufficient age who cannot tell the name of the town, county and state in which he lives. But geology, which is just as well worth knowing, is neglected, and there is but little opportunity for learning any thing practically in regard to it from those about us. This is not owing to a want of a desire for knowledge, but to a want of instruction in this science, and of the practical application of what is learned by adding local geological information in a handy, cheap and accessible form, and this, which no other work affords, it is the aim of this book to furnish.