rsecting the area subject to delineation. After attaining certain
rude skill in such work, the student may advantageously make
excursions to districts which he can see only in a hurried way. As he
goes, he should endeavour to note on a sketch map the positions of the
hills and streams and the directions of the roads. A year of holiday
practice in such work will, if the tasks occupy somewhere about a
hundred hours of his time, serve greatly to extend or reawaken what
may be called the topographic sense, and enable him to place in terms
of space the observations of Nature which he may make.

In his more detailed work the student should select some particular
field for his inquiry. If he be specially interested in geologic
phenomena, he will best begin by noting two classes of facts--those
exhibited in the rocks as they actually appear in the state of repose
as shown in the outcrops of his neighbourhood, and those shown in the
active manifestations of geological work, the decay of the rocks and
the transportation of their waste, or, if the conditions favour, the
complicated phenomena of the seashores.

As soon as the student begins to observe, he should begin to make a
record of his studies. To the novice in any science written, and
particularly sketched, notes are of the utmost importance. These,
whether in words or in drawings, should be made in face of the facts;
they should, indeed, be set down at the close of an observation,
though not until the observer feels that the object he is studying has
yielded to him all which it can at that time give. It is well to
remark that where a record is made at the outset of a study the
student is apt to feel that he is in some way pledged to shape all he
may see to fit that which he has first written. In his early
experience as a teacher, the writer was accustomed to have students
compare their work of observation and delineation with that done by
trained men on the same ground. It now seems to him best for the
beginner at first to avoid all such reference of his own work to that
of others. So great is the need of developing independent motive that
it is better at the outset to make many blunders than to secure
accuracy by trust in a leader. The skilful teacher can give fitting
words of caution which may help a student to find the true way, but
any reference of his undertakings to masterpieces is sure to breed a
servile habit. Therefore such comparisons are fitting only after the