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"So my nephew is a naval hero, and has been wounded-this is quite to my taste. Lord Pompadour, who has become wondrous civil of late, was here yesterday, and says he served under his brother, the admiral, and is a young man of the very highest character for talent and good conduct-this is even more pleasant. Martenbroke Ashley is a pretty name; but if he is to be his aunt's heir, he must assume the old crusader's nomme d'honneur, with the arms, &c., of Beaufoy (you see, Grace, how the old pride is in my heart still), and he must leave the navy; he has no one to fight now, and when they all come to Darkbrothers to stay with me till I die, as I trust they will at once do, I will hang the silver collar round his neck, and he shall be my devoted knight, as you are my darling nurse, and I will share my love between you, with a reserve for my dear sister and niece."

Miss Beaufoy also wrote to her sister by the same post a long letter full of contrition, humility, and love. Mrs. Ashley wept happy tears over it, and then hid it in her bosom.

Three months afterwards, the whole party were gathered round the Vicarage drawing-room fire, and before another year had gone round, Miss Beaufoy had the great joy of seeing her nephew and her fair young nurse united in marriage, the happy couple leaving after the ceremony for Hazleglens, a beautiful place presented to Captain Ashley Beaufoy by his aunt, and within a few miles of Earlsdale and the Vicarage. The record also says, that on the top of the carriage which conveyed the bride and bridegoom to their new residence, carefully packed in an imperial, was the silver collar of Sir Guy Martenbroke!

Miss Beaufoy never forsook Darkbrothers, but on the contrary, spent so much of her time, and taste, and money, in improving the house, and beautifying the ruin, that Darkbrothers became a lion in the neighbourhood, so that the Pompadours used to bring their guests to see it as a well-kept and picturesque piece of antique land

scape; and the old lady often spoke of purchasing the fee-simple of the place, and leaving it to Grace's second boy, Martenbroke, who was her favourite grandnephew.

The cloisters were silent now, for James, the idiot lad, had died of an over-gorge of green pears plundered from the Earl's orchard one moonlight night, and Miss Beaufoy had replaced him with two little skye-terrriers, who kept the rats at bay; and with the absence of these nocturnal trampers, the legend of Friar Basset died out in a few years, like a lamp for lack of fuel.

Cheering it by her presence, blessing it by her charities, and brightening it by her hospitality, and her happy temper, Miss Beaufoy lived many years at "the Old House of Darkbro. thers." She died in Grace's arms, full of faith, and hope, and joy, and the poor wept around her grave.

About four or five years before she died, the family had all assembled one happy Christmas at the Vicarage, and were talking over old events, when Captain Beaufoy, addressing his wife,

said

"Grace, I want you to clear up a mystery to me and to all these good people. I have now been your happy husband for ten years, and if I were to trait of your character, I should anbe asked what is the distinguishing swer, feminine gentleness. Tell us, then, what was the secret cause of your heroism, and what enabled you to go through scenes that many a man would have

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hearted from ?" Grace answered in a low sweet tone"My secret power was all in prayer. I went to my divine Saviour for everything; he gave me the faith to ask, to receive; he NEVER FAILED ME — was all the secret of my strength. - this May it be yours, my beloved husband, and yours, my own dear friends.”

There was silence among the circle as they sat, but the ear of God heard each heart as it throbbed its deep Amen.

B.

GEOLOGICAL SURVEYS; THEIR OBJECTS AND UTILITY.

No science, with perhaps the exception of galvanism and its branches, has in an equal period made such rapid advances towards maturity as geology. Dating its resuscitated life from the days of Werner, De Saussure, Pallas, and Hutton, towards the end of the last century, it has, within the memory of some of its surviving fathers, attained the stature of a full and vigorous manhood.

The common assertion, that geology is in its infancy, is only true with reference to the vast field which remains to be brought within the compass of geological investigation; but is false when compared with the growth of other sciences. Its rapid progress is to be ascribed to the fact, that it contains within itself many elements of popularity. What conceptions of the human mind more marvellous than the sober deductions of geology! To learn that we walk over the bed of ancient seas; that continents occupy the place of former oceans, and oceans of former continents; that the rocks which form not only the plains, but also the summits of mountains, contain the wellpreserved remains of marine animals ;* that we adorn our halls and our hearths, or construct our edifices, with blocks once the habitations, as they are now the tombs, of corallines and animalculæ, some of which have left monuments of their existence, which cause the great wall of China, the mounds of Nimroud, or the pyramids of Egypt, to appear insignificant. In the language of a celebrated naturalist,† lately deceased-" For miles and miles we may walk over the stony fragments of the crinoidea, fragments which were once built up in animated forms, encased in living flesh, and obeying the will of creatures among the loveliest of the inhabitants of the ocean."

Moreover, to know, for the first

E.

time, that the British Islands, which, within historic periods, have felt but a few slight vibrations of earthquakes far remote, were in former ages the seat of vast subterranean movements, which contorted and fractured its rocks, producing vertical dislocations of hundreds and even thousands of feet;‡ that volcanoes, generally submarine, ejected over some portions of their area ashes and scoriæ; and that from their craters streams of lava, equalling those of Skapter Jokul, or Etna, were poured forth all these and similar phenomena are so novel, so startling, and cause so great a revolution in the mind's preconceived ideas, that the attention of the student is at once arrested, and he is impelled to prosecutę the study of a science which abounds in details of such wonder and interest.

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The study of fossil remains is attended with like attractiveness. examine, for the first time, a fossil shell with a curiosity similar to that with which we handle an ærolite. In the one, we have the preserved portion of an animal, the inhabitant of our world, at a period when its geographi cal boundaries, its climate, and its fauna and flora were generally dissimilar to those of our own time; in the other, we have a mineral, the only solid, not originally part of our own globe, with which we can hope to come in contact. To both, therefore, there is attached an amount of interest distinct in its character from that which belongs to other objects, as they are respectively the representatives of ages long since past, and of objects far beyond our reach. Were it not for these organisms, often so beautifully preserved, we should have imagined ourselves and our fellow-creatures the first examples of terrestrial life. Geology with out these could never have attained the position of an exact science. The stra

g. The highest peak of Snowdon is formed of an "ashy slate," of the lower silurian series, containing fossil shells.

Prof. E. Forbes in his "History of British Starfishes."

Professor Ramsay mentions several "faults" in Wales, varying in the amount of their vertical dislocations from 6,000 to 2,000 feet.-See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. for August, 1853.

ta, now the records of the earth's preadamic history, written in intelligible characters, could have been regarded only as a volume of blank pages, and man would have been denied one of the grandest of those illustrations of the power of the Creator which the study of nature is capable of affording.

Another element of popularity in our science is the facility of its pursuit. Unlike most other sciences, it seldom requires the aid of expensive or cumbrous instruments; nor do many abstruse mathematical problems retard the progress of the general student. Geology is pre-eminently a science of observation, in a minor degree of speculation. To its cultivators, a knowledge of the principles and a certain amount of the details of other sciences is indispensible; but to the student of nature, the acquisition of these can be attended only with gratification, and may afterwards, in a great measure, be carried about in the memory. Armed with his hammer, compass, clinometer, map, and fossil-bag, the "knight of the hammer" is fully equipped, and ready to take the field. As a true knight-errant, he often braves dangers and surmounts obstacles both of nature and art; and exploring the wildest regions of the earth, he seeks for countries where he may break rocks that are tougher than lances, and on which he may be the first to plant the standard of science.

Although geology abounds in the marvellous, and in investigations capable of affording high intellectual enjoyment, it also embraces subjects of great practical utility, bearing on the wants and occupations of every-day life. To those economical details, which it is the object of geological surveys-especially those undertaken under governmental auspices-to develop, we now wish to direct special attention.

Few persons who have not specially considered the subject, are aware to how large an extent the social and commercial prosperity of a people depends upon the geological structure of the country it inhabits. It is not alone to the religious and moral qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race, nor to the enlightened laws, temperate climate, and in

sular position of this country, that we are (humanly speaking) indebted for our national greatness and commercial prosperity, though these have been powerful auxiliaries; it is also in a great degree to the mineral richness of the rocks* of which the British Islands are composed. Had the whole surface of Britain been overspread by the formations of North Wales, the Highlands of Scotland, or those of the South-East of England, we could never have become a great commercial or manufacturing community. The occupations and distribution of the inhabitants is evidence of the truth of this proposition. A traveller, passing through the Scottish Highlands and the mountainous districts of England and Wales, finds the mountains and valleys peopled by scattered races, engaged in husbandry and pastoral pursuits. He descends into the plains, and there he finds nuclei of dense populations, the centres of manufacturing industry; surrounding which, and stretching away over extensive areas, he beholds the country devoted to agriculture, dotted over with villages, cottages, substantial farms, and country seats. Here we have the three principal phases of British life, depending chiefly upon the nature of the strata in their respective districts for their distribution. The mountainous tracts are formed of primary and plutonic rocks, which, being destitute of coal, and physically ineligible for commercial and high agricultural enterprise, are often abandoned to their natural tenants, or formed into extensive pasture for flocks and herds, or parcelled out into widespreading forests. The manufacturing towns are situated upon, or in the neighbourhood of, the secondary rocks, the repositories of coal and iron, and thus a mighty impetus is imparted to the prosecution of manufacturing enterprise. Dr. Buckland† calls attention to the fact, that nineteen of the largest and most important towns in England, from Exeter to Carlisle, are situated along the line of one geological formation-the new red sandstone, which, in addition to its own mineral products, usually covers the invaluable deposit of coal, and at once yields an incentive

* The term "rock,” when used in a geological sense, signifies strata of all kinds, whether clays or sands, as well as hard stone.

"Bridgewater Treatise."

and supply to the vast populations of this favoured region. While, lastly, the agricultural districts are occupied by those formations both older and newer than the coal measures, which,* devoid of useful minerals, are calculated, both from the nature of their own composition, and the character of their superficies, to yield abundant returns for the labours of the agriculturalist.

In order to illustrate the influence which the nature and structure of the strata exert in directing the social habits, and determining the density of populations, we select the following:

The Staffordshire Potteries are celebrated through the world for the excellence and beauty of the china-wares which they produce. The materials used in their manufacture are generally decomposing granite, flints, and carboniferous limestone chert; not one of which commodities is the product of the district. The granite is brought from Cornwall; the flints, from the south-east coast of England; and the chert, from parts of Staffordshire and Derbyshire, at a distance of about fifteen miles from the Potteries. But the presence of coal below the chert surface has marked out that part, of Staffordshire as the best situation for the factories; and it has, in consequence, become one of the most busy, smoky, and populous districts in Britain; and the wonder is, how objects so beautiful, pure and white, as its porcelain, statuettes, and other products of genius and industry, can be produced under so impure an atmosphere.

We shall cross the Atlantic for a second illustration-one disconnected with the question of the supply of coal.

Most of the low and level lands on the Atlantic side of the United States, are composed of tertiary and cretaceous rocks. Next succeeds a more elevated and less level region, which is hypozoic or crystalline. Of course, the rivers which cut across all these forma

tions, usually show rapids or cataracts, where they pass from the crystalline to the newer deposits. Hence, such places usually form the head of navigation for vessels, and it is this circumstance that has located so many large cities on the line between the hypozoic and more recent rocks; these are New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, Washington, Richmond, Augusta, Columbus, Wetumpha, &c.

The two countries of the world physically most favourable to great commercial prosperity, are Britain and the United States of America; and surely it cannot be regarded as mere accident, that they are inhabited by nations united by origin, language, and religion. The coal-fields § of the United States bear about the same proportion to their area, that those of Britain do to hers; and the strata which produce the coal-beds of both countries belong to the same great geological formation, the carboniferous; in other words, they were in process of formation at the same period of time. In Britain, the area occupied by coal-measures is about 12,000 square miles. In the States of America, the coal formation overspreads an area of more than 225,000 square miles; and, at a moderate calculation, the cubic contents of coal is nearly 150 miles! As is the case in Britain, the coal-measures of America abound in iron; and from other rocks, minerals and ores are to be obtained in inexhaustible quantities. She, therefore, possesses all the raw materiel necessary to great commercial prosperity; and should these resources be developed in a degree proportionate with those of this country, the future of America, in a commercial point of view, is likely to be grand beyond precedent. With such a prospect, the supposition of the New Zealander standing on London-bridge, to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's, would apparently be realised rather in the person of Brother Jonathan, than of an inhabitant of the Pacific Isles.

An empire of vast territorial extent, to which the eyes of the world are now directed, labours under the disadvan

The term coal-measures is applied to all the strata, whether clays, shells, or sandstones, which are associated with coal-beds.

† I. e., formed of igneous rocks, as granites, basalts, &c.

From "Outlines of the Geology of the Globe." By Professor Hitchcock.
The district occupied by coal-producing rocks, called coal-measures.

VOL. XLVI.-NO. CCLXXVI.

2 z

tage which an almost total absence of coal within its own bounds must necessarily present, both to commercial prosperity and to progress. In the Ural Mountains and Siberia, Russia undoubtedly possesses exhaustless treasures of minerals and metallic ores; but of greater value to her would have been the possession of an equal area of coal-bearing strata. There can be no doubt that the want of coal, when the supply from foreign countries is cut off, acts as a check upon the ambitious projects of Russia. The present war appears to have well nigh exhausted her supply. For want of coal, St. Petersburgh is now lighted with oil instead of gas, and the locomotive engines are heated with wood.*

Few countries of any considerable extent are entirely destitute of coal. Besides its occurrence in Britain and Ireland, it is found in France, Spain, Belgium, Saxony, Bohemia, and Sweden; along the southern shores of the Black Sea; in Persia, Hindostan, China, East Indian Islands, Labuan, Australia, North and South America; in the latter, in Banda, and along the west side of the Cordilleras. Its more remarkable localities are Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, and the coasts of Green. land.

To determine with accuracy the mineral resources of the district included within the range of its investigations, is the principal object of the geological survey. By tracing the boundaries of the successive geological formations with their minor lithological subdivisions on accurate topographical charts, an approximate estimate of the area occupied by each may be obtained. By this means, we are able to measure and portray the amount of its limestones, iron - beds, sandstones, slates, granites, and other rocks, together with their arrangement and relationship to each other. With reference principally to coal, the evidence to be derived from such surveys is particularly valuable; for from the data thus collected, the means are afforded for determining localities where coal

does or does not exist below the surface; and in the former case its probable depth; and thus persons are made aware of favourable sites for sinking, or deterred from doing so, in localities where coal-beds do not exist, or are too deep to be reached. In the British Islands, and other countries, there are several geological formations, the strata of which occasionally bear strong resemblance to those which produce coal, though entirely distinct therefrom as regards their respective ages, and consequent relative position. Relying, however, on similarity of appearance, and deficient in that higher kind of knowledge, which enables the possessor, from an inspection of fossil contents or other data, to generalise for large areas, persons have often expended large sums in abortive attempts to obtain the precious mineral. These attempts have been the ruin of many, and the amount may be counted by hundreds of thousands. It is the object of geological surveys not only to indicate districts under which coal undoubtedly exists, but also those where it cannot possibly be found; and where accurate maps have been completed, no excuse remains to those who, neglecting to consult them, incur a profitless, and often ruinous expenditure.†

Geological surveys of districts of limited extent have been frequently made by individuals or societies in this and other countries. Of this fact the reader of the "Transactions of the Geological Society of London" is fully aware. Geological maps of the British Isles, by several authors, are also in existence, which are as accurate as the smallness of the scale will admit of When, however, the Ordnance Topographical Surveyors had produced some of their beautifully-executed maps, on the scales of one inch and six inches to the mile, the value of a geographical survey, which should have these maps as their basis, was acknowledged; and accordingly, Sir H. T. De la Beche obtained from Government the establishment of geological surveys over Great Britain and Ireland. There

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*From a correspondent of a London newspaper. † Sir R. I. Murchison, in his "Silurian System," mentions one enterprise which was abandoned after an expenditure of £20,000! In " Richardson's Geology," edited by Dr. T. Wright, another instance is mentioned in which £10,000 was squandered; and the writer of this article is personally acquainted with five abortive attempts, resulting from ignorance.

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