THE
ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY
BY
WILLIAM HARMON NORTON
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN CORNELL COLLEGE
GINN & COMPANY
BOSTON * NEW YORK * CHICAGO * LONDON
Copyright, 1905, by
WILLIAM HARMON NORTON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
5511
| The Atheneum Press |
| GINN & COMPANY PROPRIETORS BOSTON * U.S.A. |
Geology is a science of such rapid growth that no apology isexpected when from time to time a new text-book is added to thosealready in the field. The present work, however, is the outcome ofthe need of a text-book of very simple outline, in which causesand their consequences should be knit together as closely aspossible,—a need long felt by the author in his teaching, andperhaps by other teachers also. The author has ventured,therefore, to depart from the common usage which subdividesgeology into a number of departments,—dynamical, structural,physiographic, and historical,—and to treat in immediateconnection with each geological process the land forms and therock structures which it has produced.
It is hoped that the facts of geology and the inferences drawnfrom them have been so presented as to afford an efficientdiscipline in inductive reasoning. Typical examples have been usedto introduce many topics, and it has been the author’s aim to givedue proportion to both the wide generalizations of our science andto the concrete facts on which they rest.
There have been added a number of practical exercises such as theauthor has used for several years in the class room. These are notmade so numerous as to displace the problems which no doubt manyteachers prefer to have their pupils solve impromptu during therecitation, but may, it is hoped, suggest their use.
In historical geology a broad view is given of the development ofthe North American continent and the evolution of[iv]life upon the planet. Only the leading types of plants and animals arementioned, and special attention is given to those which mark thelines of descent of forms now living.
By omitting much technical detail of a mineralogical andpa