View source for Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/18

<noinclude><pagequality level="3" user="Phe" />{{rh|14|INTRODUCTION|}}</noinclude><br />

A third foreigner might travel from the coast of Dorset
to the coast of Yorkshire, over elevated plains of oolitic
limestone, or of chalk; without a single mountain, or mine,
or coal-pit, or any important manufactory, and occupied by
a population almost exclusively agricultural.

Let us suppose these three strangers to meet at the termination
of their journeys, and to compare their respective
observations; how different would be the results to which
each would have arrived, respecting the actual condition of
Great Britain. The first would represent it as a thinly
peopled region of barren mountains; the second, as a land
of rich pastures, crowded with a flourishing population of
manufacturers; the third, as a great corn-field, occupied by
persons almost exclusively engaged in the pursuits of husbandry.

These dissimilar conditions of three great divisions of our
country, result from differences in the geological structure
of the districts through which our three travellers have been
conducted. The first will have seen only those north-western
portions of Britain, that are composed of rocks belonging
to the primary and transition series: the second will
have traversed those fertile portions of the new red Sandstone
formation which are made up of the detritus of more
ancient rocks, and have beneath, and near them, inestimable
treasures of mineral coal: the third will have confined his
route to wolds of limestone, and downs of chalk, which are
best adapted for sheep-walks, and the production of corn.<ref name=p14>{{blockref}}The road from Bath through Cirencester and Oxford to Buckingham, and thence by Kettering and Stamford to Lincoln, affords a good example of the unvaried sameness in the features and culture of the soil, and in the occupations of the people, that attends the line of direction, in which the oolite formation crosses England from Weymouth to Scarborough.
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The road from Dorchester, by Blandford and Salisbury, to Andover and Basingstoke, or from Dunstable to Royston, Cambridge, and Newmarket,</ref><ref follow=p13>reduced by Gardner from Mr. Greenough's large map of England, published by the Geological Society of London.</ref><noinclude>
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