This is a reprint of the fourth English edition, without additions or alterations, excepting the omission of the prefatory Notes to the second and third editions. In the first of these, the author states that he had added about fifteen pages to the first edition, chiefly relating to that middle formation of the system to which the organisms of Balruddery and Carmylie belong, the representative of the Cornstones in England. Some matters there given as merely conjectural were also replaced by ascertained facts. In the latter, he announces that the somewhat bold prediction made by him in the first edition, in 1841, that the ichthyolites of the Old Red Sandstone would be found at least equal to those of all the geological formations united, at the death of Cuvier, was already more than fulfilled. Cuvier enumerated ninety-two species of fossil fishes; Agassiz, in 1846, enumerated one hundred and five in the Old Red Sandstone alone, a formation which had been regarded as poorer in organisms than any other. In this edition was given the list of species, as determined and arranged by Professor Agassiz. Many additions in the shape of notes were also made. In the first two editions it was stated that there was a gradual increase of size observable in the progress of ichthyolic life, and that the Old Red System exhibited, in its successive formations, this gradation of bulk, beginning with an age of dwarfs, and ending with an age of giants. Since then, it has been ascertained that there were giants among the dwarfs. The remains of one of the largest fish found any where, has been discovered in its lowest formation; whereby he was convinced that the theory of a gradual progression in size, from the earlier to the later Palæozoic formations, though based originally on no inconsiderable amount of negative evidence, must be permitted to drop. On this fact he has based his incontrovertible argument against the "development theory" in his more recent work, already given to the American Public, "Foot-Prints of the Creator." Boston, _January_, 1851. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Working-man's true Policy.--His only Mode of acquiring Power.--The Exercise of the Faculties essential to Enjoyment.--No necessary Connection between Labor and Unhappiness.--Narrative.--Scenes in a Quarry.--The two dead Birds.--Landscape.--Ripple Markings on a Sandstone Slab.--Boulder Stones.--Inferences derived from their water-worn Appearance.--Sea-coast Section.--My first discovered Fossil.--Lias Deposit on the Shores of the Moray Frith.--Belemnite.--Result of the Experience of half a Lifetime of Toil.--Advantages of a Wandering Profession in Connection with the Geology of a Country.--Geological Opportunities of the Stone-Mason.--Design of the present Work, 1-14 CHAPTER II.