"IN these morning-days of existence, Nature at once stamped, with her plastic
hand, her lineaments of beauty and adaptation on everything she made. There is
nothing omitted to be afterward supplied - nothing formed defective in a single part
or organ that required to be corrected. The first discoveries in Geology at once speak
conclusively of a plan or Course of Creation devised from the beginning - a power,
not delegated, but linked forever with the first intelligent Cause a world, through
all its changes, continually presided over and ruled by Him who made it."

CINCINNATI:

WM. H. MOORE & CO., PUBLISHERS,

118 MAIN STREET.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Ohio.

E. MORGAN & CO., STEREOTYPERS, PRINTERS AND BINDERS,

PREFACE.

Ir is no mitigation of an author's temerity in publishing, that he can say for himself he had no intention, when collecting and arranging his materials, of ever submitting them to the eye of the public, or of provoking criticism by his speculations. Certain it

is, however, I have often, and with severity at times, questioned myself as to the propriety of my geological pursuits, my ardent love of them, and their compatibility with the strict discharge of professional duty. My answer generally was, I sought not these things of themselves; they were hung up and displayed before me, wherever I went on pleasure, on business, or on duty. I simply inquired after their names; and of all the geological phenomena that have passed under my review, I can safely affirm of them, in their darkest, deepest places, they have uniformly led me "from nature up to nature's God," and have inscribed upon them in brightest characters-BENEDICTUM SIT NOMEN DEI.