THOUGHTS
ON A
PEBBLE
REEVE, BENHAM, AND REEVE,
PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS OF SCIENTIFIC WORKS,
KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND.
Painted by J. J. Masquerier.
Engraved by Samuel Stepney.
GIDEON ALGERNON MANTELL, L.L.D. F.R.S
Vice-President of the Geological Society &c. &c.
THOUGHTS
ON A
PEBBLE,
OR,
A FIRST LESSON IN GEOLOGY.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY."
The Nautilus and the Ammonite. Vide, [p. 57.]
"There is no picking up a pebble by the brook-side, without finding all nature in connexion with it."
Contemplations of Nature.
EIGHTH EDITION; WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON:
REEVE, BENHAM, AND REEVE, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND.
1849.
TO
MY SON,
Reginald Nebille Mantell, C.E.,
THESE
"THOUGHTS ON A PEBBLE"
ARE MOST AFFECTIONATELY
INSCRIBED.
LONDON,
19, CHESTER SQUARE, PIMLICO.
1849.
"Every grain of sand is an immensity—every leaf a world—every insect an assemblage of incomprehensible effects in which reflection is lost."
Lavater.
"To the natural philosopher there is no natural object that is unimportant or trifling. From the least of Nature's works he may learn the greatest lessons. The fall of an apple to the ground may raise his thoughts to the laws which govern the revolutions of the planets in their orbits; or the situation of a pebble may afford him evidence of the state of the globe he inhabits, myriads of ages before his species became its denizens."
Sir J. F. W. Herschel.