Town Geology 1

Town Geology 1

Town Geology

 

Author: Charles Kingsley

 

PREFACE

 

 

 

This little book, including the greater part of this Preface, has

shaped itself out of lectures given to the young men of the city of

Chester. But it does not deal, in its present form, with the geology

of the neighbourhood of Chester only. I have tried so to recast it,

that any townsman, at least in the manufacturing districts of England

and Scotland, may learn from it to judge, roughly perhaps, but on the

whole accurately, of the rocks and soils of his own neighbourhood.

He will find, it is true, in these pages, little or nothing about

those "Old Red Sandstones," so interesting to a Scotchman; and he

will have to bear in mind, if he belong to the coal districts of

Scotland, that the "stones in the wall" there belong to much older

rocks than those "New Red Sandstones" of which this book treats; and

that the coal measures of Scotland, with the volcanic rocks which

have disturbed them, are often very different in appearance to the

English coal measures. But he will soon learn to distinguish the

relative age of rocks by the fossils found in them, which he can now,

happily, study in many local museums; and he may be certain, for the

rest, that all rocks and soils whatsoever which he may meet have been

laid down by the agents, and according to the laws, which I have

tried to set forth in this book; and these only require, for the

learning of them, the exercise of his own observation and common

sense. I have not tried to make this a handbook of geological facts.

Such a guide (and none better) the young man will find in Sir Charles

Lyell's "Student's Elements of Geology." I have tried rather to

teach the method of geology, than its facts; to furnish the student

with a key to all geology, rough indeed and rudimentary, but sure and

sound enough, I trust, to help him to unlock most geological problems

which he may meet, in any quarter of the globe. But young men must

remember always, that neither this book, nor all the books in the

world, will make them geologists. No amount of book learning will

make a man a scientific man; nothing but patient observation, and

quiet and fair thought over what he has observed. He must go out for

himself, see for himself, compare and judge for himself, in the

field, the quarry, the cutting. He must study rocks, ores, fossils,

in the nearest museum; and thus store his head, not with words, but

with facts. He must verify--as far as he can--what he reads in

books, by his own observation; and be slow to believe anything, even

on the highest scientific authority, till he has either seen it, or

something like enough to it to make it seem to him probable, or at

least possible. So, and so only, will he become a scientific man,

and a good geologist; and acquire that habit of mind by which alone

he can judge fairly and wisely of facts of any kind whatsoever.

 

I say--facts of any kind whatsoever. If any of my readers should be

inclined to say to themselves: Geology may be a very pleasant study,

but I have no special fancy for it. I had rather learn something of

botany, astronomy, chemistry, or what not--I shall answer: By all

means. Learn any branch of Natural Science you will. It matters

little to me which you learn, provided you learn one at least. But

bear in mind, and settle it in your hearts, that you will learn no

branch of science soundly, so as to master it, and be able to make

use of it, unless you acquire that habit and method of mind which I

am trying to teach you in this book. I have tried to teach it you by

geology, because geology is, perhaps, the simplest and the easiest of

all physical sciences. It appeals more than any to mere common

sense. It requires fewer difficult experiments, and expensive

apparatus. It requires less previous knowledge of other sciences,

whether pure or mixed; at least in its rudimentary stages. It is

more free from long and puzzling Greek and Latin words. It is

specially, the poor man's science. But if you do not like it, study

something else. Only study that as you must study geology;

proceeding from the known to the unknown by observation and

experiment.

 

But here some of my readers may ask, as they have a perfect right to

ask, why I wish young men to learn Natural Science at all? What good

will the right understanding of geology, or of astronomy, or of

chemistry, or of the plants or animals which they meet--what good, I

say, will that do them?

 

In the first place, they need, I presume, occupation after their

hours of work. If any of them answer: "We do not want occupation,

we want amusement. Work is very dull, and we want something which

will excite our fancy, imagination, sense of humour. We want poetry,

fiction, even a good laugh or a game of play"--I shall most fully

agree with them. There is often no better medicine for a hard-worked

body and mind than a good laugh; and the man who can play most

heartily when he has a chance of playing is generally the man who can

work most heartily when he must work. But there is certainly nothing

in the study of physical science to interfere with genial hilarity;

though, indeed, some solemn persons have been wont to reprove the

members of the British Association, and specially that Red Lion Club,

where all the philosophers are expected to lash their tails and roar,

of being somewhat too fond of mere and sheer fun, after the abstruse

papers of the day are read and discussed. And as for harmless

amusement, and still more for the free exercise of the fancy and the

imagination, I know few studies to compare with Natural History; with

the search for the most beautiful and curious productions of Nature

amid her loveliest scenery, and in her freshest atmosphere. I have

known again and again working men who in the midst of smoky cities

have kept their bodies, their minds, and their hearts healthy and

pure by going out into the country at odd hours, and making

collections of fossils, plants, insects, birds, or some other objects

of natural history; and I doubt not that such will be the case with

some of my readers.

 

Another argument, and a very strong one, in favour of studying some

branch of Natural Science just now is this--that without it you can

hardly keep pace with the thought of the world around you.

 

Over and above the solid gain of a scientific habit of mind, of which

I shall speak presently, the gain of mere facts, the increased

knowledge of this planet on which we live, is very valuable just now;

valuable certainly to all who do not wish their children and their

younger brothers to know more about the universe than they do.

 

Natural Science is now occupying a more and more important place in

education. Oxford, Cambridge, the London University, the public

schools, one after another, are taking up the subject in earnest; so

are the middle-class schools; so I trust will all primary schools

throughout the country; and I hope that my children, at least, if not

I myself, will see the day, when ignorance of the primary laws and

facts of science will be looked on as a defect, only second to

ignorance of the primary laws of religion and morality.

 

I speak strongly, but deliberately. It does seem to me strange, to

use the mildest word, that people whose destiny it is to live, even

for a few short years, on this planet which we call the earth, and

who do not at all intend to live on it as hermits, shutting

themselves up in cells, and looking on death as an escape and a

deliverance, but intend to live as comfortably and wholesomely as

they can, they and their children after them--it seems strange, I

say, that such people should in general be so careless about the

constitution of this same planet, and of the laws and facts on which

depend, not merely their comfort and their wealth, but their health

and their very lives, and the health and the lives of their children

and descendants.

 

I know some will say, at least to themselves: "What need for us to

study science? There are plenty to do that already; and we shall be

sure sooner or later to profit by their discoveries; and meanwhile it

is not science which is needed to make mankind thrive, but simple

common sense."

 

I should reply, that to expect to profit by other men's discoveries

when you do not pay for them--to let others labour in the hope of

entering into their labours, is not a very noble or generous state of

mind--comparable somewhat, I should say, to that of the fatting ox,

who willingly allows the farmer to house him, till for him, feed him,

provided only he himself may lounge in his stall, and eat, and NOT be

thankful. There is one difference in the two cases, but only one--

that while the farmer can repay himself by eating the ox, the

scientific man cannot repay himself by eating you; and so never gets

paid, in most cases, at all.

 

But as for mankind thriving by common sense: they have not thriven

by common sense, because they have not used their common sense

according to that regulated method which is called science. In no

age, in no country, as yet, have the majority of mankind been guided,

I will not say by the love of God, and by the fear of God, but even

by sense and reason. Not sense and reason, but nonsense and

unreason, prejudice and fancy, greed and haste, have led them to such

results as were to be expected--to superstitions, persecutions, wars,

famines, pestilence, hereditary diseases, poverty, waste--waste

incalculable, and now too often irremediable--waste of life, of

labour, of capital, of raw material, of soil, of manure, of every

bounty which God has bestowed on man, till, as in the eastern

Mediterranean, whole countries, some of the finest in the world, seem

ruined for ever: and all because men will not learn nor obey those

physical laws of the universe, which (whether we be conscious of them

or not) are all around us, like walls of iron and of adamant--say

rather, like some vast machine, ruthless though beneficent, among the

wheels of which if we entangle ourselves in our rash ignorance, they

will not stop to set us free, but crush us, as they have crushed

whole nations and whole races ere now, to powder. Very terrible,

though very calm, is outraged Nature.

 

 

Though the mills of God grind slowly,

Yet they grind exceeding small;

Though He sit, and wait with patience,

With exactness grinds He all.

 

 

It is, I believe, one of the most hopeful among the many hopeful

signs of the times, that the civilised nations of Europe and America

are awakening slowly but surely to this truth. The civilised world

is learning, thank God, more and more of the importance of physical

science; year by year, thank God, it is learning to live more and

more according to those laws of physical science, which are, as the

great Lord Bacon said of old, none other than "Vox Dei in rebus

revelata"--the Word of God revealed in facts; and it is gaining by so

doing, year by year, more and more of health and wealth; of peaceful

and comfortable, even of graceful and elevating, means of life for

fresh millions.

 

If you want to know what the study of physical science has done for

man, look, as a single instance, at the science of Sanatory Reform;

the science which does not merely try to cure disease, and shut the

stable-door after the horse is stolen, but tries to prevent disease;

and, thank God! is succeeding beyond our highest expectations. Or

look at the actual fresh amount of employment, of subsistence, which

science has, during the last century, given to men; and judge for

yourselves whether the study of it be not one worthy of those who

wish to help themselves, and, in so doing, to help their fellow-men.

Let me quote to you a passage from an essay urging the institution of

schools of physical science for artisans, which says all I wish to

say and more:

 

"The discoveries of Voltaic electricity, electromagnetism, and

magnetic electricity, by Volta, OErsted, and Faraday, led to the

invention of electric telegraphy by Wheatstone and others, and to the

great manufactures of telegraph cables and telegraph wire, and of the

materials required for them. The value of the cargo of the Great

Eastern alone in the recent Bombay telegraph expedition was

calculated at three millions of pounds sterling. It also led to the

employment of thousands of operators to transmit the telegraphic

messages, and to a great increase of our commerce in nearly all its

branches by the more rapid means of communication. The discovery of

Voltaic electricity further led to the invention of electro-plating,

and to the employment of a large number of persons in that business.

The numerous experimental researches on specific heat, latent heat,

the tension of vapours, the properties of water, the mechanical

effect of heat, etc., resulted in the development of steam-engines,

and railways, and the almost endless employments depending upon their

construction and use. About a quarter of a million of persons are

employed on railways alone in Great Britain. The various original

investigations on the chemical effects of light led to the invention

of photography, and have given employment to thousands of persons who

practise that process, or manufacture and prepare the various

material and articles required in it. The discovery of chlorine by

Scheele led to the invention of the modern processes of bleaching,

and to various improvements in the dyeing of the textile fabrics, and

has given employment to a very large number of our Lancashire

operatives. The discovery of chlorine has also contributed to the

employment of thousands of printers, by enabling Esparto grass to be

bleached and formed into paper for the use of our daily press. The

numerous experimental investigations in relation to coal-gas have

been the means of extending the use of that substance, and of

increasing the employment of workmen and others connected with its

manufacture. The discovery of the alkaline metals by Davy, of

cyanide of potassium, of nickel, phosphorus, the common acids, and a

multitude of other substances, has led to the employment of a whole

army of workmen in the conversion of those substances into articles

of utility. The foregoing examples might be greatly enlarged upon,

and a great many others might be selected from the sciences of

physics and chemistry: but those mentioned will suffice. There is

not a force of Nature, nor scarcely a material substance that we

employ, which has not been the subject of several, and in some cases

of numerous, original experimental researches, many of which have

resulted, in a greater or less degree, in increasing the employment

for workmen and others." {1}

 

"All this may be very true. But of what practical use will physical

science be to me?"

 

Let me ask in return: Are none of you going to emigrate? If you

have courage and wisdom, emigrate you will, some of you, instead of

stopping here to scramble over each other's backs for the scraps,

like black-beetles in a kitchen. And if you emigrate, you will soon

find out, if you have eyes and common sense, that the vegetable

wealth of the world is no more exhausted than its mineral wealth.

Exhausted? Not half of it--I believe not a tenth of it--is yet

known. Could I show you the wealth which I have seen in a single

Tropic island, not sixty miles square--precious timbers, gums,

fruits, what not, enough to give employment and wealth to thousands

and tens of thousands, wasting for want of being known and worked--

then you would see what a man who emigrates may do, by a little sound

knowledge of botany alone.

 

And if not. Suppose that any one of you, learning a little sound

Natural History, should abide here in Britain to your life's end, and

observe nothing but the hedgerow plants, he would find that there is

much more to be seen in those mere hedgerow plants than he fancies

now. The microscope will reveal to him in the tissues of any wood,

of any seed, wonders which will first amuse him, then puzzle him, and

at last (I hope) awe him, as he perceives that smallness of size

interferes in no way with perfection of development, and that

"Nature," as has been well said, "is greatest in that which is

least." And more. Suppose that he went further still. Suppose that

he extended his researches somewhat to those minuter vegetable forms,

the mosses, fungi, lichens; suppose that he went a little further

still, and tried what the microscope would show him in any stagnant

pool, whether fresh water or salt, of Desmidiae, Diatoms, and all

those wondrous atomies which seem as yet to defy our classification

into plants or animals. Suppose he learnt something of this, but

nothing of aught else. Would he have gained no solid wisdom? He

would be a stupider man than I have a right to believe any of my

readers to be, if he had not gained thereby somewhat of the most

valuable of treasures--namely, that inductive habit of mind, that

power of judging fairly of facts, without which no good or lasting

work will be done, whether in physical science, in social science, in

politics, in philosophy, in philology, or in history.

 

But more: let me urge you to study Natural Science, on grounds which

may be to you new and unexpected--on social, I had almost said on

political, grounds.

 

We all know, and I trust we all love, the names of Liberty, Equality,

and Brotherhood. We feel, I trust, that these words are too

beautiful not to represent true and just ideas; and that therefore

they will come true, and be fulfilled, somewhen, somewhere, somehow.

It may be in a shape very different from that which you, or I, or any

man expects; but still they will be fulfilled.

 

But if they are to come true, it is we, the individual men, who must

help them to come true for the whole world, by practising them

ourselves, when and where we can. And I tell you--that in becoming

scientific men, in studying science and acquiring the scientific

habit of mind, you will find yourselves enjoying a freedom, an

equality, a brotherhood, such as you will not find elsewhere just

now.

 

Freedom: what do we want freedom for? For this, at least; that we

may be each and all able to think what we choose; and to say what we

choose also, provided we do not say it rudely or violently, so as to

provoke a breach of the peace. That last was Mr. Buckle's definition

of freedom of speech. That was the only limit to it which he would

allow; and I think that that is Mr. John Stuart Mill's limit also.

It is mine. And I think we have that kind of freedom in these

islands as perfectly as any men are likely to have it on this earth.

 

But what I complain of is, that when men have got the freedom, three

out of four of them will not use it. What?--someone will answer--Do

you suppose that I will not say what I choose, and that I dare not

speak my own mind to any man? Doubtless. But are you sure first,

that you think what you choose, or only what someone else chooses for

you? Are you sure that you make up your own mind before you speak,

or let someone else make it up for you? Your speech may be free

enough, my good friend; and Heaven forbid that it should be anything

else: but are your thoughts free likewise? Are you sure that,

though you may hate bigotry in others, you are not somewhat of a

bigot yourself? That you do not look at only one side of a question,

and that the one which pleases you? That you do not take up your

opinions at second hand, from some book or some newspaper, which

after all only reflects your own feelings, your own opinions? You

should ask yourselves that question, seriously and often: "Are my

thoughts really free?" No one values more highly than I do the

advantage of a free press. But you must remember always that a

newspaper editor, however honest or able, is no more infallible than

the Pope; that he may, just as you may, only see one side of a

question, while any question is sure to have two sides, or perhaps

three or four; and if you only see the side which suits you, day

after day, month after month, you must needs become bigoted to it.

Your thoughts must needs run in one groove. They cannot (as Mr.

Matthew Arnold would say) "play freely round" a question; and look it

all over, boldly, patiently, rationally, charitably.

 

And I tell you that if you, or I, or any man, want to let our

thoughts play freely round questions, and so escape from the tendency

to become bigoted and narrow-minded which there is in every human

being, then we must acquire something of that inductive habit of mind

which the study of Natural Science gives. It is, after all, as

Professor Huxley says, only common sense well regulated. But then it

is well regulated; and how precious it is, if you can but get it.

The art of seeing, the art of knowing what you see; the art of

comparing, of perceiving true likenesses and true differences, and so

of classifying and arranging what you see: the art of connecting

facts together in your own mind in chains of cause and effect, and

that accurately, patiently, calmly, without prejudice, vanity, or

temper--this is what is wanted for true freedom of mind. But

accuracy, patience, freedom from prejudice, carelessness for all

except the truth, whatever the truth may be--are not these the

virtues of a truly free spirit? Then, as I said just now, I know no

study so able to give that free habit of mind as the Study of Natural

Science.

 

Equality, too: whatever equality may or may not be just, or

possible; this at least, is just, and I hope possible; that every

man, every child, of every rank, should have an equal chance of

education; an equal chance of developing all that is in him by

nature; an equal chance of acquiring a fair knowledge of those facts

of the universe which specially concern him; and of having his reason

trained to judge of them. I say, whatever equal rights men may or

may not have, they have this right. Let every boy, every girl, have

an equal and sound education. If I had my way, I would give the same

education to the child of the collier and to the child of a peer. I

would see that they were taught the same things, and by the same

method. Let them all begin alike, say I. They will be handicapped

heavily enough as they go on in life, without our handicapping them

in their first race. Whatever stable they come out of, whatever

promise they show, let them all train alike, and start fair, and let

the best colt win.

 

Well: but there is a branch of education in which, even now, the

poor man can compete fairly against the rich; and that is, Natural

Science. In the first place, the rich, blind to their own interest,

have neglected it hitherto in their schools; so that they have not

the start of the poor man on that subject which they have on many.

In the next place, Natural Science is a subject which a man cannot

learn by paying for teachers. He must teach it himself, by patient

observation, by patient common sense. And if the poor man is not the

rich man's equal in those qualities, it must be his own fault, not

his purse's. Many shops have I seen about the world, in which fools

could buy articles more or less helpful to them; but never saw I yet

an observation-shop, nor a common-sense shop either. And if any man

says, "We must buy books:" I answer, a poor man now can obtain better

scientific books than a duke or a prince could sixty years ago,

simply because then the books did not exist. When I was a boy I

would have given much, or rather my father would have given much, if

I could have got hold of such scientific books as are to be found now

in any first-class elementary school. And if more expensive books

are needed; if a microscope or apparatus is needed; can you not get

them by the co-operative method, which has worked so well in other

matters? Can you not form yourselves into a Natural Science club,

for buying such things and lending them round among your members; and

for discussion also, the reading of scientific papers of your own

writing, the comparing of your observations, general mutual help and

mutual instructions? Such societies are becoming numerous now, and

gladly should I see one in every town. For in science, as in most

matters, "As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the  countenance of his friend."