Transcriber’s Note
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Harper & Brothers New York.
THE STORY
OF
THE EARTH AND MAN,
BY
J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F.K.S., F.G.S.,
PRINCIPAL AND VICE-CHANCELLOR OF McGILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL,
AUTHOR OF “ARCHAIA,” “ACADIAN GEOLOGY,” ETC.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE
PREFACE
The science of the earth as illustrated by geologicalresearch, is one of the noblest outgrowths of ourmodern intellectual life. Constituting the sum ofall the natural sciences in their application to thehistory of our world, it affords a very wide and variedscope for mental activity, and deals with some of thegrandest problems of space and time and of organicexistence. It invites us to be present at the originof things, and to enter into the very workshop of theCreator. It has, besides, most important and intimateconnection with the industrial arts and with the materialresources at the disposal of man. Its educationalvalue, as a means of cultivating the powers of observingand reasoning, and of accustoming the mindto deal with large and intricate questions, can scarcelybe overrated.
But fully to serve these high ends, the study ofgeology must be based on a thorough knowledge ofthe subjects which constitute its elementary data. Itmust be divested as far as possible of merely localcolouring, and of the prejudices of specialists. Itmust be emancipated from the control of the baldmetaphysical speculations so rife in our time, and[viii]above all it must be delivered from that materialisticinfidelity, which, by robbing nature of the spiritualelement, and of its presiding Divinity, makes sciencedry, barren, and repulsive, diminishes its educationalvalue, and even renders it less efficient for purposesof practical research.
That the want of these preliminary conditions marsmuch of the popular science of our day is too evident;and I confess that the wish to attempt somethingbetter, and thereby to revive the interest in geologicalstudy, to attract attention to its educational value, andto remove the misapprehensions which exist in somequarters respecting it, were principal reasons whichinduced me to undertake the series of papers for theLeisure Hour, which are reproduced, with some amendmentsand extension, in the present work. How farI have succeeded, I must leave to the intelligent and,I trust, indulgent reader to decide. In any case Ihave presented this many-sided subject in the aspectin which it appears to a geologist whose studies haveled him to compare with each other the two greatcontinental areas which are the classic ground of thescience, and who retains his faith in those unseenrealities of w