DIRECTIONS FOR THE TEACHING OF GEOLOGY: A MANUAL FOR THE TEACHER, TO ACCOMPANY “THE FIRST BOOK IN GEOLOGY.” BY N. S. SHALER, S.D., PROFESSOR OF PALZONTOLOGY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY D. C. HEATH & CO. LSo7. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the yeal N. 8, SHALER, im the Office of the Librarian of Congress ac Washing DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. INTRODUCTION. © A preparing the set of text-books of geology of which aw this primer constitutes the first volume, I have been .. guided by my experience in teaching the subject, gained i in about twenty years’ work with individual students and ~~ classes as well as by a careful inquiry into the methods ‘, followed in such work by the teachers of this and other countries. ‘This practical experience has included work ~ with students of all grades, but principally with beginners , iy. the science, of more mature years than those for whom 4 this primer is designed. I have, however, been able to ¢ test the method with young children of ten or twelve ? years of age, and am satisfied that there is no difficulty in ~ making use of it even with younger persons. r ‘Everyone who has had experience in the teaching of * nature to children has seen how eagerly they accept any e natural contact with the physical world. All that is to be taken in through the senses is welcome to them. It is only when we try to turn their attention to things that are not to be touched or seen that the teacher’s task be- comes difficult and the danger of inattention great. This is the result of the order in which the faculties develop. 5 In that period of intellectual development which we may cal mental infancy, the mind can properly do little more than receive impressions, which are built into itself and become a part of the consciousness. We must wait for the second stage of development before the imagination begins to use this meee for higher ends. Therefore angel > mL oh a ios a oe. Be 4 PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. the aim of this primer is to secure a limited number of memories, and these of things that may help the mind in its later growth. In trying to effect this result, I have felt it necessary to rely upon the exertions of the teacher more than upon the didactic part of the work itself. Were it not for my belief that there exists a sufficiently devoted body of in- structors to warrant this trust, I should not have under- taken this series of text-books. For any competent in- struction in science, we must expect far more from the teacher than need be demanded from them in any other branch of elementary education. In mathematics, in lit- erature, in history, the current of life sets towards the learning we seek to instil; moreover, the race has for centuries been occupying itself with this class of ques- tions, and they are no longer strange to the mind of man. Science, however, is not yet a part of the common intellec- tual heritage, and its ways, if they be true to its spirit, are to a great extent different from those of, the humanities. I would not have it thought that the teaching of science even to the very young is a more painful task than the teaching of the more common branches of education. On the contrary, I am convinced that if it is rightly done, it is more pleasant, even if more laborious, than any other part of the teacher’s work. Nor would I have it believed, as some men of science are inclined to claim, that science may replace the other branches of education. I will not enter on the broad field that opens to us when we en- deavor to determine the place of science in a system: of education, but I would like, in order that the motive that has guided me may be plain, to state my firm convic- tion that science cannot in any way replace the old edu- cation. It must be added to it. And its good results can DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. 5 only be secured by the commingling of its teaching with those branches of learning that have lifted the human mind to its present level. It seems to me very desirable that the first steps of the child in the study of the physical world should be given by teachers who give the beginnings of the other branches of learning. Although it is held by some students of the problem of science-teaching that the work must be done by special teachers of science, I am inclined to believe that the view is'a mistaken one. The well-trained teacher in the humanities who knows something of science, and who pursues the right methods, can blend science with the other learning. The special teacher will have to divide the intellectual life of the student, and in the infantile stages of education it is difficult to make this division. I have therefore assumed that those who make use of these primers are persons of only a general acquaintance with natural science, whose principal task is to teach the subjects ordinarily taught to students of primary or sec- ondary schools of the lower grade. I have therefore de- termined to make a careful statement of the purposes of this little book, and to accompany each lesson with a set of directions which will make it possible for the teacher to give the work the right turn for the students’ advantage. It is of the utmost importance for the teacher to notice that the science of geology, as well as astronomy, ealls for certain conceptions of space and time that it is not easy for the student to attain to. We see the magni- tude of this difficulty in tracing the history of these - sciences. It was long before man could accept the ideas of distance and duration which are necessary in order to grasp the merest outlines of these sciences. We cannot ° hope to get these vast images into the minds of children, 6 - PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. yet some seed may be sown which in time will take root and flourish. This task is the more difficult because the whole course of our civilized life is away from such con- ceptions. The savage gets in his wilderness life a sense of distances and durations which our own life does not give to us. Even in our teaching of history we do not take pains to force the student to strive for the perspec- tive the past should give, but let the historic pictures stand more out of true proportion in the memory than a Chinese landscape. As this power to conceive space- relations must grow with all teaching of geology if the instruction is to help the mental growth, I venture to give special importance to it, and to set out the method by which the student may be helped on his way. In gaining the power to conceive the space that things occupy, the child should, as soon as possible, be accus- tomed to measure space with the simplest means. Some unit of measure, by preference the yard or the metre, should be hung in the schoolroom, or, better still, marked on sticks with which the children take calisthenic exercise. It will be well to write on the school wall, in a place where the children’s eyes will often meet it, a diagram showing the actual length of the metre, yard, rod, ete. The aisle of the schoolroom may be marked into divisions of metres by brass-headed tacks driven into the floor. Thus the children will learn to perceive this unit in a practical way. The children, from about seven years old, should be taught to draw proportionate horizontal planes of the desks they use; then, of the schoolroom floor; next, of the ground on which the schoolhouse stands. This work should gradually be extended until the student can show the general relation of all the ground he personally knows. DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. i I have found this style of work, modified to suit the con- ditions of the person, useful to students of all grades. They gain thereby a power of conceiving space-relations, without which all efforts towards the study of the earth are in vain. This, as all other work that really develops the mind, is welcomed by all wholesome-minded students. It is not at all important that these drawings should have any perfection of finish. It is doubtful if this quality in such work is to be striven for among children. It is, how- ever, essential that the sketch maps should be referred to the main points of the compass, that they should be ap- proximately proportionate, and that the student should use some scale for his work. A yard measure does well for buildings. For a larger field, such as a square mile or two of country, the mile and its fractions are well suited. The power of mentally grasping any considerable area will not be found in small children. Indeed, there are many educated people who cannot carry a square mile of the earth’s surface in their imaginations. So this work must be somewhat proportioned to the capacities of the individual student. Iam inclined to believe, however, that the topo- graphical sense is more general and more easily stimulated to activity than any other intellectual power. The teacher will see the profit of it to the child not only in the depart- ment of physical science, but also in mathematics. The science of relations depends upon a constructive imagina- tion. The drawing of sketch maps stimulates this power more than any other work I know. As soon as children have gained a certain sense of the horizontal elements of geography, they will be able to see the relation between maps and the face of the earth, which is rarely established in a child’s mind in our ordinary ways of teaching geog- raphy. It will be found to help this work if the teacher 8 PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. will take pains to show the student a well-made map of the region he has endeavored to delineate. An excellent plan is to let a party of children be taken for a walk. Their attention should be drawn to the shape of the country, the direction of the streams and the woods, the position of hills and important buildings. When they return, they should be at once urged to make a plan of the ground they have traversed. Interest will be given to the work by allowing them to use crayons in making the maps, using sky-blue for the streams and red for the woods, while they show the position of the hills by some simple hatchure lines. The conception of height should ae if possible, be given to students, but it is more difficult to give a simple means of training the eye and mind in this than in hori- zontal dimensions. It is important that something, how- ever inadequate, should be done in the way of training in this element of space-perceptions. It is best to begin with small ranges of height, and then proceed gradually towards more and more extended conceptions. ‘The height of the schoolroom should be given as the first study, and the lesson enforced by a diagram showing the relation of length to height. If the wall contains any conspicuous objects, such as diagrams or maps, these should be given. Then an external plan of the building will furnish an ap- propriate exercise. It will be found advantageous to rule a scale of heights on the schoolroom wall. By ascertain- ing the heights of some of the principal buildings or trees in the immediate neighborhood of the school, the teacher will be able to give the students some data for judging elevations. If the country familiar to the child be of irregular surface, excellent studies are sure to be at hand on which the child can find exercise after the beginning DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. 9 is made. The vertical outline of a hill, with an estimate of its height from objects upon it, is an excellent thing for training the eye. Also, the task of drawing an out- line of a wood, showing how it rises above and falls below a horizontal line. Only at the last, if at all, should any effort be made to represent hills by either hatchure lines or by contour lines. This is the most difficult task of delineation, and to bear the surface of a country so well in mind that it can be thus given with any approxima- tion to truth requires either more training than most students can give to it or a more than ordinary topo- graphical memory. If the training can be carried on for some years, even if but an hour a week can be given to it, students may be able to remember the shape of a con- siderable surface of country. Although it is often an agreeable exercise for the stu- dent to make his drawings in the field, and there is no objection to his doing something of this in time, yet at the outset he should give only what he can bring to the school in his memory. On this same account, in the first stages of his work, the child should be urged to delineate rooms that are not before the eye at the time when the work is done. Even when this work must be begun by the child drawing the figure of the wall in the next room, and repeatedly going to the room to refresh the memory, it will be well to take this simple step for a beginning. It should be remembered that it is not so much the de- lineative power that we are seeking to train, but the power of creating an image of definite form in the mind by an effort of memory. This is the first object. The next is to secure the memory of the true proportions of space, separating objects in nature and their relations in space. The capacity of the hand to follow the eye in 10 PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. simple delineation, though in itself a worthy object of training, is nothing like as important for the development of the habit of mind necessary to a student of nature. In fact, a very high degree of capacity of comprehension may be attained without much development of the delinea- tive power. ‘There are many very capable and philosophi- cal naturalists that have very little capacity for delineation, but I doubt if there are any that have not a considerable sense of the spacial relations of things. It need hardly be said, however, that the making of dia- grams to show geographical relations is excellent exercise in delineation, or, rather, in the training of the mind and hand to co-operation. Next in importance to this development of the sense of distance and direction, I would place the training of the habit of observation. It is a natural but most unhappy misconception on the part of many who are seeking to make science a part of education that it is the fact part of science that is of value to the young mind. They think that, if the student can only be possessed of all the body of fact known to science, he would have a most precious store. So far, the greater part of the efforts to teach science have been made worse than worthless by this per- nicious notion. The truth is that the mere facts of science, important as they may be in an economic sense, have very little value as elements of education. They do not of them- selves enter into the whole of human life as do the facts of history or language. The fact that the trias pre- cedes the jura in the geological succession is of no sort of intellectual consequence to the student. It does not link itself with human instincts as the fact that Constanti- nople fell to the Turks in 1458, though in the whole of DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. iy! nature it may be an even more momentous truth. It seems to me that any considerate man must hold with me that even if a person of marvellous memory should be able to remember every ascertained fact in all the natural sciences, he might, if his knowledge went no further, be still an essentially uneducated man. He who should know all the facts of man’s history would find that his own humanity would necessarily produce a unity of under- standing, and such a man would truly become ripe and scholarly. But the mere facts of nature have no such thread of human sympathy or other common level to give them unity in the intelligence. These things science can give the mind,—the sense of cause and consequence, or what we call natural cause, properly taught, and the power of independent inquiry into the truths of nature. It cannot humanize the mind, and this humanization is the first and principal work of education. In this last gift, the power of independent inquiry, we find the benefi- cent place of natural science in education. The greater part of that which has to be given to students in educa- tion must be given didactically. There can be in the ordinary student’s work no independent inquiry into the facts of history or of literature, and but little in the matter of speech or of mathematics. He must open his mind to receive, asking no other reason for the belief than that those who are his masters bid him take it so. The attitude of independent inquiry is hardly possible in any of the most essential matters of education. Of course, reasons are given for most things, but the student can never, in the ordinary course of human life, stand fear- lessly before the hidden truth and claim it as the prize of his own skill or courage. In natural science, this indi- vidual manner of acquaintance with nature is possible to 12 PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. all. Every student may then feel himself in the exalted position of an independent inquirer, with no master be- tween him and the eternal truth. Only those who have in youth felt the great and enno- bling stimulus that comes from this direct contact with the truths of the physical world can know how full it is of power for good. Once possess the mind of this habit, and commonplace methods of inquiry are ever afterwards stale. If there be any natural strength in him, the stu- dent will do better work in all the fields of activity for the strength he acquires in his wrestle with nature. The training in observation that children require is easily given by any one in the least degree in sympathy with the work. We may at the outset rely upon the instinc- tive desire to know which is the strongest mental work of childhood. ‘This curiosity concerning the external world is generally an inconvenience to the older members of the race, and so a desire as natural as hunger, and which if gratified would serve to build and strengthen the mind, becomes vitiated by time and dulled by want of use. Our whole method of didactic teaching neces- sarily works against this instinctive desire to know. The child is led by his nature to a love of the outer world, the actual graspable, seeable world. We turn him to abstractions, so that his mind is palled with things for which he has no appetite. I do not mean to object to didactic methods. Education cannot be effectual without such methods of instruction, and the habit of taking knowledge in this way must be impressed upon the mind in early youth. But the mind should have its share of exercise in the other fashion, the fashion in which the child’s nature most clearly invites it. The difficulty of giving any training in observation in DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. 13 the classes of our ordinary schools is undoubtedly very great. At one time it seemed to me so great that I de- spaired of any success in the effort to attain it. Of late I have become.more hopeful about the matter, principally because I have seen the profitable results of very simple but well-directed labor on the part of several teachers working with students of various ages. The method of working must be left in the main to the teacher. So much depends upon the circumstances of each school that it is impossible to devise a system that shall be applicable to all cases. One of the conspicuous advantages derived from the training in the perceptions of space relations above described is that, besides the spe- cial end in view, it lays the foundations of the observa- tional habit. When nothing else can be done, much can be accomplished by extending and elaborating this sort of work. | When schools are situated in close-built cities, and there is no contact with the open fields, it will generally be necessary to limit observation to the following matters. The students may be induced to grow certain plants and to observe the simple processes of development. Any window-sill, with two or three pints of earth in vessels of any description, or a jar of water in a warm room, will tell them some of the most fascinating truths concerning the physiology of plants. The teacher, by possessing himself of Dr. Gray’s admirable little book, entitled ““ How Plants Grow,” will be able to guide the experiments to success, and to make an intellectual use of the results, even though he has never before given any attention to botany. There are certain advantages in beginning the training of students in observation in organic forms, living things especially. Animals have an immediate interest to chil- 14 PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. dren that inorganic nature does not possess. The life that is in plants and animals excites a more vigorous curiosity than the physical machinery of the world can ever do. In this style of science teaching, or at the very outset of the work, it is well to make of avail the interest of accumulation that possesses all children. They may ad- vantageously be taught to collect plants and dry them, or to make small collections of insects. This work should not be allowed to descend to mere gathering of things together, but it should lead to a beginning in classifica- tion. The child should find out such essential differences as those between butterflies and moths, or at least between the several principal orders of insects. The little collec- tion of natural objects which is designed to accompany this series of text-books will show the essential nature of these differences, but the actual seeing that teaches the child should come through its own eyes, with the least possible help from the teacher. When it comes to the © wider and more varied seeing that is essential in the study of geology, the work has to be varied very much, accord- ing to the particular circumstances under which it is carried on. If the teaching is done in large cities, where the child can never have access to the face of nature, the work will have to be limited. Still the child can be shown the action of frost and rain; the buildings will show considerable variety of stones; and museums, that are hardly wanting in any large cities, will show them a great range of minerals, rocks, and fossils. There is pretty sure to be a river or a bit of seashore near by from which the eye can take in some of the little prob- lems suggested in the list at the end of this essay. If a fair museum of natural history be accessible to students, they should be urged to compare their collections with DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. 15 the specimens there shown, as far as it may be possible for them to do so. One of the most interesting amusements that can be suggested to children is the gathering of insects, in the pupa state, and the watching for their full development. I know of few things more calculated to assure a lively curiosity in their minds and to open to them a delightful sense of the wonderful in nature. In the science of ge- ology, the work must be adapted to the ground. Where fossils occur, they afford the readiest road to the interest of the student. We may be certain that the least trace of distinct organic remains in the rocks will excite the imagination of any child who is capable of feeling an in- terest in the phenomena of nature. There is a mystery about these remains of other days that is sure to awaken at times a lively interest in minds which cannot be brought to feel a keen interest in living animals. It is the case in the history of geology, where men, whose curiosity con- cerning the earth was not awakened by the lofty moun- tains, by the earthquake or the volcano, were driven to use their wits to solve the mystery of fossils. Fortunately, a very large part of the teachers of this country will find themselves near deposits containing organic remains. Outside of New England, there are few schools three miles away from deposits containing interesting fossils. The teacher will do well to make himself acquainted with these localities, that he may direct the attention of stu- dents to them. When fossils fail, there are always inter- esting minerals, and then, as over the greater part of the Northern States, there is usually also an abundance of glacial pebbles. After children have been told something about the last glacial period, they may advantageously be urged to make collections of these pebbles, to show the 16 PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. variety of materials of which they are composed, their scratching, etc. I have more than once found young people in New England who became readily intenested in observations of this simple sort. When the circumstances favor it, I strongly recommend the study of the banks of a river. On a short excursion it is almost always possible to show the children how a river works ; how it carries along sand and gravel when it moves with moderate speed, or only mud when it flows slowly. The constant going of its current, now cutting away on one side, and filling in on the other, can also be shown, and perhaps the fossils laid down when the stream was at a higher level than it is at present. If the teacher is near the seacoast, it cannot be too strongly urged that the students should at least once see the phenomena of the shore. ‘There is nothing else in nature that can do so much to stir the mind and force it towards broad conceptions of nature as a look upon this, the most wonderful aspect of the earth. The sea and the river are the best means of carrying to the child a sense of the essential mystery of the earth which the work of our modern life hides from us. The teacher will find in some cases the world and all its beauty are hidden from the child by the density of that veil of the commonplace, which is really lifted to but few mortals. It is not desirable that the child should feel too keenly the true awfulness of the material world; but, if a child is possessed by the distressing ennui that wraps some mis- trained minds, resort must be had to these grander aspects of nature, which often have a strong quickening power. I venture also to suggest the use of certain descriptions of natural scenery, of the habits of animals, etc., in the reading classes of the school. Something of these are to be found DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. 17 in the ordinary school-books, but in the appended list a better selection is made. ‘This part of the work may easily be overdone, and it is somewhat apart from the end I have in view, which is rather to secure the personal ac- tivity than the passive acceptance of the student. Much has been said by writers on education concerning the use of instruction in drawing to enforce the habit of observation, and by some a great deal is expected from it. I have had much experience in the use of this method of instruction, and have been driven to the conclusion that mere delineation does not do much to awaken the mind to a perception of nature. Limited to the task of transferring the form of natural objects to the picture, the mind acquires the power of seeing the facts without any effort of the reason or the imagination to interpret them. One fact of form or color after the other is apprehended and transferred to the sketch, but the mind acquires the habit of dismissing the observation as soon as made. The questioning spirit is not awakened, and the principal aim of all science teaching should be to arouse this spirit and train it to a fit activity. Drawing is an excellent means of developing the faculty of attention until it becomes automatic, when the subsequent exercise of it without other mental stimu- lus is calculated to breed habits opposed to the spirit of inquiry. Much better fitted to the use of a well-devised teaching system is the habit of delineation by words. Speech, even when written, has a tendency, which drawing has not, to arouse all the faculties of the mind. If a child can be ' brought to writing descriptions of objects, it will be forced thereby to see and to understand. Written statements are _ better than verbal, for the reason that the child is compelled 18 PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. to remember and compare its statements in a more com- . plete way than is possible in spoken words. The two methods are, however, susceptible of being combined. One of the best methods I have ever found of beginning the work of the student, is to require him to describe, with the thing before him, some simple creature, such as a house fly, or a bee, that he has captured and imprisoned under a bell-glass. The first questions should be of the simplest sort, —how the creature walks, how many legs it has, how it flies, the number of its wings, how it breathes, etc. Then, when the evident external features of the insect have been perceived and noted down, another insect, such as a grasshopper, should be placed under the bell-glass along with the first object, and a comparison between the two should be made. The number of the wings will be found to be different. Though the legs are the same in number, the way in which they are used is very different. Next, a beetle may be added to the collection, with the same set of questions to be answered. Then a spider may be taken in the same way. The points of difference between the second two insects and the spider will be easily seen, and scarcely ever fail to arouse in the student, as no words can do, a sense of the diversities and relations that exist in nature. In the department of geology I can recommend, that when it is possible for the student to make a little sketch map of any district, however simple the sketch may be, he be encouraged to note the kind of rocks or fossils or pebbles he finds at particular points on the surface and to mark where there are woods, and where springs. ‘The nature of soil may also be noted,— where the soil is deep, where thin, where clayey, where sandy, ete. Of course, this work has to be adapted to the age of the child; but DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. 19 children of from ten to thirteen years or thereabouts can do all this with very little help from the teacher. If there are any maps of the vicinity, it is an excellent plan, though not always practicable, to give them a copy of the map, on which they may lay down the things they can find out. It will add to the interest of this work if the teacher knows something of botany, and can teach the children the difference between the principal kinds of trees and lesser plants. Forest trees always vary very much in different parts of a field, and the child will get valuable impressions from such observations. I may remark, in passing, that forest trees afford an admirable field for training the observational power. Our American woods commonly contain from twelve to twenty species of trees, excluding the willows, which are hard to separate into species. In a single season a child will learn to distinguish the more evident species of trees, and so obtain an excel- lent training of the power of observation. The mass and dignity of a forest tree makes it a matter of more interest to a child than the lesser plants. If there are quarries within reach of the school, the student can be advantageously occupied with them. The elements of human interest that the work going on in the quarry lends to the questions it illustrates will aid the teacher in exciting the attention of the student. These quarries will always show a variety of mineral substances, and perhaps fossils as well. They will, in most cases, show something of bedding in the rocks, and always some- thing of joint structure. In many cases there will be dykes and veins that illustrate the facts described in the primer. Every chance opening beneath the surface of the earth will exhibit something of interest to the student. Any cellar-pit is certain to show the varying character of the 20 PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. soil, — how on the surface it is blackened by the vegetable mould, how this blackening caused by the humus fades out as we go downwards, until in the subsoil we come to where roots do not penetrate. If the opening reaches to the rock, and be not in a soil made by the glacial period, it will show how the rock, by its decay, gives the materials whence the soil is made, so that, while it is always washing away on the surface, it is continually renewing below. At a later stage in the progress of the investigative habit, the teacher may aid the student to place signs upon his map to show the outlines of certain kinds of rock. A very useful exercise, but one that demands more aid from the teacher than any of those which have already been suggested, is to have the student make an ideal sec- tion through the country in the fashion indicated by the diagrams in the text-book. ‘This work is, of all a student in geology can do, the best fitted to develop that combi- nation of the imagination and the reason which character- izes the better class of scientific minds. When the geo- logical conditions are simple, the teacher can readily learn to do this class of work with sufficient skill to be very helpful to the student. I do not venture, however, to advise an early resort to this sort of work, as it is fit rather for those of maturer age than for those who are just beginning the study of nature. The foregoing pages are intended rather to give the teacher a general idea of the means whereby the student may advantageously be led to a study of nature than to set up a determined scheme to be pursued in all eases. After all, in this, as well as in all other forms of teaching, the spirit must come to the child through the personal skill of the instructor. I believe, however, that — any intelligent teacher, even if quite without training in DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. yi | natural science, will find it possible to apply many of these suggestions to great advantage. There is no means of finding the way into any field of learning like pre- paring one’s self to teach the elements thereof. While the best teacher of the elements of a subject is the perfect master of that subject, who at the same time loves his work, the next best instructor is the skilful beginner, who, with a mind trained in other fields of learning, can readily keep ahead of his less skilful pupils. He will make mistakes, but the leadership he gives is more per- sonal and more familiar than that which is likely to come from one who has come to feel somewhat fatigued by the oft-trodden way. The study of nature is in no way a mystery that requires of the novice a careful initiation. Many of those naturalists who have had the most mental profit from their pursuit have been entirely self-taught. The work to be done demands only intelligence and an interest in the matter. If, with these qualifications, the teacher will but address himself to nature, and emanci- pate himself from the authority of books until he begins to see with his own powers, the end is easily attained. This initial emancipation from books is necessary, and is perhaps the only serious difficulty to be encountered by any intelligent student in working his own way into communication with nature. It is difficult because the whole drift of our education is towards books. We take all that is given by our ordinary system of education by authority. The printed page is the gospel towards which all faces turn. Nature does not speak directly to man, but through its oracles the text-books. Now text-books are fit and worthy means of teaching many subjects, but in natural science, if used at all, they should have a very subordinate place. They can serve only to do a secondary rye PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. work. The principal part of it must be done by the teacher, whose task should be to stimulate the minds of his pupils to independent activity. He should use the text-book to widen and strengthen the impressions that have been gained by the actual contact of the child’s mind with the problems, as they are expressed not by words but by the face of nature itself. In using this first book of geology, the teacher should clearly understand the aim with which it is prepared. This aim has been to secure to the student certain distinct impressions of those facts in the history and economy of the earth that can best be conveyed by words. The effort has not been to go over the whole field of geology, but, on the contrary, to select the crucial facts, and above all those that were likely to be made familiar to the student by his ordinary contacts with the world about him. If this little book is used quite without reference to what is contained in the companion volume, it will be found no worse than an ordinary text-book. I believe it has an advantage over any known to me in the fact that it does not confound the student with the multitude of things, but gives those things which he may reasonably understand at the outset of his study of nature. If, however, the teacher will make use of the suggestions contained in these parallel notes, and will by words and by showing specimens, pictures, and models expound and solidify the matter of the text, then I believe that much more can be done to stimulate the intelligence of the child than can be ac- complished with any other system of text-books on this subject. | It is my hope that the teachers who use this first book will endeavor to carry out the scheme of collateral instruction suggested in the following parallel chapters. DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. 23 Each chapter of the book that is to be put into the hands of students bears a number answering to one of the following chapters. The intention of the chapters in this book is to put the teacher in possession of the pur- poses the writer has in each chapter, and to suggest illus- trations from the neighborhood geology that cannot, of course, be noted in the book itself. In many cases refer- ences to other easily accessible books are given, so that the teacher may consult authorities. In some cases a few simple experiments, designed to show the phenomena that are capable of illustration without special apparatus, are given. It must be noted that, in this first book, abstractions that require special training or call for a large development of the imagination are kept out of the text, though they are sometimes recommended to be given by the teacher. The reason for this is that statements of this kind are much more easily conveyed by speech than by written words. There is a flexibility, an element of mind awakening sympathy in the words of a teacher that cannot be put into a printed page. This it is that will always make the personality of a teacher a necessary element in all com- petent instruction. I find myself the more willing to try this rather perplexing scheme of teaching, from the hope that it may, in a measure, serve to give greater value to our whole system of teaching by once again directing the work of teaching in the true way. Whoever knows much of our system of education knows that its greatest danger arises from the effort to supplant the living mind of the teacher by the dead language of the text-book. CHAPTER I. THE ACTION OF WATER. SRES object of this chapter is to bring the student into contact with the forces of nature through the most familiar facts that the world affords. In the work of water the forces of the world appear in a more living shape than | anywhere else. The presentation of the subject is begun with the most simple of all the operations of water where it acts through the rain. The restoring and destroying | effects of rain are but briefly told. ‘The cutting power of water may be illustrated in almost any region by hosts of familiar examples. Wherever there is a stream, there will be no lack of illustrations. Any gutter after a rain will show the carriage of sand, the rolling of pebbles, ete. In most regions, the tilled hillsides will show occasional waterways cut in the soil. It will give reality to the car- rying power of water if a tall jar is filled with water con- taining fine clay, which is allowed slowly to subside. This will show how the stuff carried down by rivers may jour- ney far. A river in its time of flood is a most instructive example of the power of water. The protecting effect of vegetation can be shown by the difference in the color of water that flows from a forest and that which comes from tilled fields. If there is a waterfall near by, the students should see its action. There are sure to be pot-holes below it that will prove interesting. It is likely also that the fall will show evidence of gradually working up stream. This is THE ACTION OF WATER. 25 pretty certain to be the case if the fall is formed, as it is at Niagara, by a hard, nearly horizontal structure of rock overlying softer layers. If the region is underlaid by limestone rock, as is the case in a large part of America, there will be caverns formed in it. These caverns will prove most interesting to the student. ‘There is an atmosphere of mystery about a cave that stimulates the mind and makes it quick to re- celve any impressions. Large springs, if they exist, are also things to be seen. The underground course of water has a fascination to the mind that will help the teacher. The sponge-like character of the soil, caused by the action of the roots, should be dwelt upon; then the gathering of the underground waters formed by the slopes of the rocks, and finally the discharge at the surface. A simple experi- ment by precipitating the lime contained in the water, or boiling down the water for its sediment, will show that the stream carries away some of the soil. It would be well to boil down two little flasks of water,— one of pure rain water, the other of spring water. The sediment in the latter will show what goes away by the springs. It is worth while, if the conditions are favorable, to show how much water goes out from a single spring. This can be reckoned by taking the size and speed of flow of the stream from its course. The phenomena of alluvial land can generally be illus- trated along the banks of any stream. It can be shown how the stream cuts off the curves, leaving ‘ oxbows,” or ‘“moats,” as figured in the text. The student must be made to see how the flood waters, when they escape into the flats, lay down their sand and pebbles because their currents are slackened. Lakes are hard to illustrate in a clear fashion. If there are any large millponds acces- 26 PRIMER OF GEOLOGY. sible, the deposits on their bottom, or the greater purity of the waters that escape from them over that of the streams that enter there, may be used as an illustration of the fact that lakes are settling reservoirs that catch the waste of the land on its way to the sea. Deltas can be shown on the banks of the smallest streams. Even in the gutters of a country road, on a rainy day, when the waters are flowing, the process of car- riage of mud, sand, and small pebbles can be seen when they have ceased to flow. ‘The principles on which the valleys of streams are formed can be well traced in these miniature models. We often see on a smooth tilled field, or a new dirt road, how at once the surface becomes divided into distinct watersheds and valleys. The insensible evaporation of the water of the seas may be illustrated by taking an open-mouthed bottle or jar and exposing it for a day in a warm room. No vapor is seen to rise, yet the water goes into the air.