Note 5 — INTRODUCTION.
Reading edition
We have not unfrequently noticed, both in the writings and conversation of some geologists, a disposition to sneer at the subsidiary branches of natural history. Mineralogy and conchology, are light and mean in their estimation, when compared with the study of extensive strata and ponderous boulders. Like Irving's testy governor of Manahatta, who settled the accounts of his clients by placing their books in the opposite scales of a balance, they decide on the value of a science, by the absolute weight of the objects embraced by it. Geology, as well as any other branch of natural history, may degenerate into a mere love for the curious, or have for its principal aim, the perfection or improvement of some ideal system of classification, without advancing a single step further.