Of all the studies which relate to the material universe, there is none, perhaps, which appeals so powerfully to our senses, or which comes into such close and immediate contact with our wants and enjoyments, as that of Geology. In our hourly walks, whether on business or for pleasure, we tread with heedless step upon the apparently uninteresting objects which it embraces: but could we rightly interrogate the rounded pebble at our feet, it would read us an exciting chapter on the history of primeval times, and would tell us of the convulsions by which it was wrenched from its parent rock, and of the floods by which it was abraded and transported to its present humble locality. In our visit to the picturesque and the sublime in nature, we are brought into closer proximity to the more interesting phenomena of geology. In the precipices which protect our rock-girt shores, which flank our mountain glens, or which variegate our lowland valleys, and in the shapeless fragments at their base, which the lichen colors, and round which the ivy twines, we see the remnants of uplifted and shattered beds, which once reposed in peace at the bottom of the ocean. Nor does the rounded boulder, which would have defied the lapidary’s wheel of the Giant Age, give forth a less oracular response from its grave of clay, or from its lair of sand. Floated by ice from some Alpine summit, or hurried along in torrents of mud, and floods of water, it may have traversed a quarter of the globe, amid the crash of falling forests, and the death shrieks of the noble animals which they sheltered. The mountain range, too, with its catacombs below, along which the earthquake transmits its terrific sounds, reminds us of the mighty power by which it was upheaved;—while the lofty peak, with its cap of ice, or its nostrils of fire, places in our view the tremendous agencies which have been at work beneath us.