Transcribe Ward series of casts of fossils (check list), 1870
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YQE 716 W25W
Gift of Wards Natural Estab. 1/26/32
No science has advanced with more rapid steps than Geology;
nor is any other science daily attracting such an increasing share of
attention from all classes of society. Its popularity is due to its
wonderful revelations and its practical bearing on the felt wants of
the people. The history of the past would be unknown but for the
unlooked-for discoveries which Geology has lately achieved, while
the advantages arising from a correct knowledge of the internal
structure of our earth are so apparent that no one dares to question
its utility.
A science so profoundly practical and so interesting, - rewarding research with its sublimest truths, - will never lack students. And it becomes a matter of no secondary importance to provide for their approaching the subject through the proper avenue. The peculiar nature of the study, as well as the high place which it is taking in our Institutions of learning demands for it better and increased appliances for illustration. For it is clear that in Geology, not less than in the other Natural Sciences, something more is needed than simple text-books or oral teaching. Visible, tangible objects can alone meet this necessity, and give the student clear and correct views. "I have satisfied myself long ago (says Agassiz), that the grand and most elementary principles of our science are better understood when illustrated from nature than when explained in a more abstract manner. In this way, each student is as it were, led to go himself over the road through which science itself has passed in its onward progress; and, far from protracting his course, he soon finds that he is brought without preamble into the very sanctuary of science."
Museums of natural objects are becoming more and more a recognized necessity. Geological cabinets are multiplying in numbers and increasing in size. In them the department of Palaeontology is securing a prominent position, now that Geologists more fully appreciate the real value of fossil organisms, and regard them as portions