We have seen a good many converts made to geology in a similar manner, since first we laid open to the light this silent memorial of ages which have passed away. Let a man have ever so slight acquaintance with geology, and give him the chance of hammering out a fossil for himself, and the odds are you thereby make him a geologist for life. There is something almost romantic in the idea that you are looking for the first time, and have yourself disentombed the remains of creatures which probably lived scores of millions of years ago! We would strongly advise our readers, therefore, not to fall into the error of supposing that fossil-hunting belongs to highly-trained geologists. On the contrary, it is by fossil-hunting alone that you can ever hope to be a geologist yourself. Another mistake often made, is that of supposing these rich and interesting geological localities are at a distance. It seems so hard to suppose, after reading about typical sections, &c., that under your very feet, in the fields where you have so often played, there occur geological phenomena of no less interest. But it is actually surprising what evidences of our earth's great antiquity, in the shape of fossils, &c., may be studied and obtained in the most out-of-the-way and insignificant places. You say you have no _rocks_ in your neighbourhood--nothing but barren sands, or beds of brick-earth or clay. Well, go to some section of the latter, exposed, perhaps, in some tarn or stagnant pond in a turnip-field. You examine the sides, and what do you see? Nothing, but here and there a boulder-stone sticking out. Well, be content with that. You said you had no rocks in your neighbourhood; how, then, has that boulder, which is a rounded fragment of a rock broken off from somewhere--how has it come there? Here is a poser at once. Examine it, and you will perhaps see that its hard surface is polished or scratched, and then you remember the theory of icebergs, and feel astonished to think that you hold in your hand an undeniable proof of the truth of that theory. Those very scratchings could have been produced in no other way; that foreign fragment of a rock now only to be found on some distant mountain-side could have been conveyed in no other manner. Not content with the exterior examination, you break the boulder-stone open, when you may chance to find it is a portion of silurian, carboniferous or oolitic limestone, and that it contains _fossils_ belonging to one of those formations. Here is a find--an object with a double interest turning up where you never expected to discover the slightest geological incident! You examine other boulders, and find in them general evidences of ice-action in their present re-deposition, and most instructive lessons as to the nature of rocks of various formations, from the granite and trap series to the fossiliferous deposits. In fact, there is no place like one of these old boulder-pits for making oneself acquainted with petrology, or the