Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/734

714 named a "geological cheese-taster." It was, indeed, a kind of large cheese-taster, fixed to the end of a long stick. This implement was thrust down, and portions of the subsoil and of the clays or sands beneath were pulled up and examined. Similar devices must obviously suggest themselves according to the nature of the work in different districts and countries.

In the course of his observations in the field, the geologist will meet with rocks as to the true nature of which he may not be able to satisfy himself at the time. He should in such cases detach a fresh chip from some less weathered part of the mass and examine it further at home. The detailed methods of investigation, which may be pursued with all the conveniences of a laboratory in town, are not possible to him in the country. But he may subject his specimens to analysis in two cases, and obtain valuable, and perhaps sufficient, information as to their characters. He can easily fit up for himself a small and portable blowpipe-box, a machine for slicing and preparing rocks, minerals, and fossils, for examination under the microscope, and a microscope.

The blowpipe-box should contain a common blowpipe, platinum-tipped forceps, platinum wire, small bottles with the ordinary reagents, and as many of the most useful parts of blowpipe apparatus as the space will admit, consistently with the whole box being easily packed into a portmanteau. By means of the blowpipe, it is often possible to determine the nature of a doubtful rock or mineral, and to ascertain the proportion of metal in an ore. A young geologist should take with him to the field only the most essential apparatus and reagents; he will gradually come to see by practice what additions he may best make to his equipment.

A convenient and portable form of the rock-slicing machine is sold by Fuess, of Berlin. Where it cannot be obtained, the field-geologist may succeed in preparing his slices by chipping thin splinters from the rock and reducing them upon a grindstone or whetstone. One side of the splinter is to be made as smooth and free from scratches as possible, which can be effected by polishing on a water-of-Ayr stone. This polished side is then cemented with Canada balsam to a piece of plate-glass. When quite firm, the upper side of the stone is ground down until the requisite degree of transparency is obtained. Considerable practice may be required, and many preparations may be spoiled, before the observer becomes proficient. But the labor is well bestowed, for in no other way can he obtain the same insight into the internal texture and arrangement of the rocks with which he is dealing. He sees what are the component minerals of a rock, and how they are built up to form the mass in which they occur. He likewise can detect many of the changes which these minerals have undergone, and he thus obtains a clew to some of the metamorphic processes by which the rocks of the earth's crust have been altered.