To work went the youth, sorely bothered; and though he had been on shore many times, he could extract nothing from his memory. The first lieutenant, however, who was inexorable, insisted upon the letter being written, and locked him up in his cabin till he intimated, by a certain signal, that the epistle was ready for inspection. The following was the result of four hours’ painful labour:— “All Spain is hilly—so is this. The natives all wear wooden shoes, and they are all a set of brutes, of which I take this to witness, that one of them called me a Picaroon. “I remain, &c.” Although geology be a topic often intensely interesting on the spot, it is not always easy to give it this character to people at a distance, who care very little whether the world has been baked or boiled, or both, or neither. Most persons, indeed, remain all their lives quite indifferent whether the globe has come into its present shape by what is called Chance, that is, I suppose, by means which we cannot investigate, and can only guess at,—or whether its various changes are susceptible of philosophical examination, and their history of being recorded with more or less precision. The sound geologist of the present day, it will be observed, professes to have nothing to do with the origin of things, but merely investigates the various physical revolutions which have taken place on the earth’s surface, by the instrumentality of natural causes. The great charm of this fascinating science, accordingly, though it may be difficult to say why, consists in the manner in which the Reason and the Imagination are brought together, in regions where two such travellers could hardly have been expected to meet. Many practical and popular questions also mingle themselves up with the scientific inquiries of geology. I remember, for instance, even when a boy, taking a great interest, on this account, in the plaster of Paris quarries of Nova Scotia. This formation shews itself generally above ground, and is of a dingy white colour, the parts exposed to the air being crumbly or decomposed. The workmen having removed the superincumbent earth, and the rotten rock, as they call it, blast the solid gypsum with gunpowder, and, having broken it into blocks sufficiently small to be handled, sell it to the American dealers. A number of vessels are daily employed in carrying it to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In my early notes, I find it gravely stated, as a thing generally understood, that most of this gypsum was sold to the millers in the United States, for the purpose of adulterating their flour! Prejudice apart, however, the fact is quite the reverse of what I believed in my youth; for, by an ingenious system of regulations, the Americans contrive that the best quality should have an advantage over bad in leaving the country. Such, indeed, is the success of these measures, that I can safely say I never saw a barrel of it that was not excellent.