Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1857-03-26
MIILERsBURG, HOLMES COUNTY, OHIO THURSDAY MARCH

'--- a-.a.ua..E1.a. s.n1a.a..
vid Page, F. G. s, That's what has don,
lit, Peter Mrs. said. That's the bool
1 I've seen him reading, evening after eve
ming. sHe shall read no more of it. sale
l. The book is isconfscnted.' When Jacl
4 came home at dinner-tihie We had a great
disturbance" .l-..f-.
Here Mr. Boulder gasped over his ham
and felt painfully nervous. Boulder went
on: ' -r. I.-s-
"Jack;' said I, you sLan never more
look on that book l put it on my own Ii
brary table. I peeped into it; / looked
into it; / read bits of it; read more Of
lit; I studied it; l threw myself heart and
soul into it; eomprehended it; l bought
a hammer" -.-f.-..,--.. -,
Here Boulder caught the hammer up
and flourished it again. He was evident
ly stone mad. ..g
"With this hammer, my boy, 1 break
my way into the treasury of Nature"
Here Boulder brought his hammer down,
and smashed my tea-cup. t
s"Ah, goodr' he cried, taking fragment
iup. "a lucky accident. Look at the
crystalline fracture. Whats here9 Clay.
What makes the clay crystalline in its
fracture? Fire. Theory of the igneous
! rocks Thickness of the ponderable crust
of the globe, eight hundred miles, Depth
at which most of the rocks ordinarily found
at the surface would exist in molten state
say twenty-five miles. Undercrust of the
globe, granite. Here's Bit -,r
Ny excitable friend took. from the man
tlepeice handsome paper-weight ofpol-
ished stone. /. 49,. n. ... ..,...
."Some ass of a man has polished this
fine specimen of primitive rock" With
one tap of his hammer, Boulder broke it in
two. "observe," he said, "the exquisite
fracture" !" ,..-..-t.i
Exquisite confound-
@Never polish fine specimen. The
geologist, my dear boy, is most particu-
lar to show you clean fracture nothing
else. He breaks stone, and takes pains
not SO much as 10 dim with a fingers
touch the brilliance Of the, broken surface.
Now fractures are of various sorts, couchoi-
or shell-like, even, uneven, smooth, splin-
terry, hackly. Only look in this beautiful
bit of granite, at the silvery CLEANS of the
mica and the suety bits of quartz speckling
the solid pudding Of the felspar. Quartz
is, of simple minerals, one of the hardest.
KNOCK out a little chip of granite, and you
will observe that it IS impossible ro pow
der the quartz in it by blows of hammer
on the hearth-stone. You perceive the
hearth-stone breaks, but the quartz grains
remain uncomminuted."
"Mr. Boulder" began, family.
was made somewhat weak and helpless by
my cold, or l should Have met with vigor.
"Pardon me Smith: they remain, / say,
uncommilted. Let me advise you to be a
geologist. am going to the hills to-day
on an excursion. Come. All, you have
a cold. Well will stop exactly half an
hour" Here he pulled out his watch
81 do want you to share my enjoyment
1 do want to make you feel the delight
caused by the study of geology. l didn't
think that l should take it up myself when
l turned out Jacks drawers. Page over
persuaded me. He's just the man to bring
the science home to you. Ah, Mrs. Boul
der doesn't know il, but, I've carried up her
spare sheets and blankets into one of the
attic:, and have most beautiful expert
ment on the formation of mud-banks from
aqueous deposit in her linen chest. I've
mixed up in water, earth and shells and
shilling's worth of shrimps. In few days
when drain the water of, you come over
to me, and I'll show you how the remains
of extinct animals get to be mixed with it.
Only, if Mrs. B. should by chance go to
the chest before the experiment is finished
20 those women those women!
ABut now, Smith, as you've cold, and
can't go to the hills, I'll show you how
gec logist need go no farther than his own
room for study of incomparably the most
glorious of sciences. III give to-day only
an elementary lesson. When / come next
we'll 90 into the things more completely.
Now look here" down came the hammer
on corner of my mantlepiece,-'I break
off this little bit of metamorphic rock; the
character has been destroyed by polishing,
but now what beauty have | not revealed"
Boulder" I cried, agive me your ham,
mer. Let me send your hammer down
into the hall" "u-e -, .v.uesr 80
''Thank you, thank you'll shall be GO
ing presently. IT'S not worth while. Dis
;Ss.iss III from your rissind what ! was just say
ing about aqueous Tcck. Above :he lgne-
Gus YOU have the metamorphic-you have,
to speak familiarly, the mantlepiece upon
the paper weight, and not the paper weight |
upon the mantelpiece." .--sa.- a..t
81 have have |" -l eiA
"To be sure you have. Heat and the
pressure of the superintendent strata
have given to these metamorphic rocks |
their crystalline appearance, though it is be-
lieved that they were once deposited by
water, and contained fossils of which all |
trace las been extinguished Well then,
Smith, on top of the mantlepiece, we place
Sir Roderick Murchison."
sCan it be possible"
"Yes, Murchiscn and the Silurian rocks
defined and discovered by. They used to
to be called, along with some Others, the
Graywacke formation" 'iflI
80, 4Indeed!'id 'ua =7'riS 'Ht ~ |
."Yes.. Here we have certain sandStones,
shales, limestones, flagstones and the states
near Bala. By Jove! Smith, you've a
slate top to that console table. fit should
be Silurian, you happy dog-if it should
be SiIurian r'i F.ft ;Hasit
Up leaped my friend aid up leaped l,