3460. GEOLOGY, Limited usefulness.—
To learn * * * the ordinary arrangement
of the different strata of minerals in the earth,
to know from their habitual collocations and
proximities where we find one mineral; whether
another, for which we are seeking, may be expected
to be in its neighborhood, is useful. But
the dreams about the modes of creation, inquiries
whether our globe has been formed by
the agency of fire or water, how many millions
of years it has cost Vulcan or Neptune to produce
what the fiat of the Creator would effect
by a single act of will, is too idle to be worth
a single hour of any man's life.—
To Dr. John P. Emmett. Washington ed. vii, 443.
(M.
1826)
