Walks and Talks in the Geological Field

Geologist Alexander Winchell invites the reader to take a journey with him in the scientific novel "Walks and Talks in the Geological Field". His offer is that, "We shall travel all over the world. We shall climb over mountain-cliffs and descend into deep mines. We shall go down under the sea, and make the acquaintance of creatures that dwell in the dark and slimy abysses. We shall split the solid rocks and find where the gold, the silver, and the iron are hidden. We shall open the stony tombs of the world's mute populations. We shall plunge through thousands of ages into the past, and shall sit on a pinnacle and see this planet bathed in the primitive ocean; boiled in the seething water; roasted in ancient fires; distorted, upheaved, moulded, and reshaped again and again, in a long process of preparation to become fit for us to dwell upon it. We shall see a long procession of strange creatures coming into view and disappearing—such a menagerie of curious beasts and crawling and creeping and flying things as never yet marched through the streets of any town. And what is most wonderful of all, we shall plunge through thousands of ages of coming events, and sit on our pinnacle and see the world grow old—all its human populations vanished—its oceans dried up—its sun darkened, and silence and midnight and Winter reigning through the entire province in which a sisterhood of planets at present basks in the warmth and light of a central and paternal sun…"