At Newton Centre a study of contemporaneous beds is made, including their relations to the inclosing rocks and a comparison of their characteristics with those of intrusive beds.
Eruptive masses, metamorphic rocks, and vein phenomena are all well shown at Fitchburg, where Rollstone Hill is an eruptive mass of granite cutting through the metamorphic mica schists and gneisses, and the granite in turn is cut by very numerous veins of pegmatite, abundantly rich in tourmaline crystals and occasionally having beryl.
Glacial structures are next taken up. At Newtonville is studied the esker and sand plateau, rendered famous by the work of Prof. W. M. Davis and others; at Clinton an exceptionally fine set of terraces, and the best example of roches moutonnées near Boston, where a class can be taught in a very few minutes to recognize that the movement of the ice sheet must have been from the north toward the south; and at Stow and Haverhill are studied drumlins.
After this, special attention is devoted to the subsequent structures of rocks, such as folds, faults, cleavage, joints, etc. Typical places, as before, are selected for each, and the work carried on in the same manner. When this course has been entirely accomplished, then places of greater complexity and where the problems are not quite so plain are visited, and opportunity is given to exercise the skill or knowledge already gained.
Following this, a series of lessons is devoted to the study of typical places illustrating the various historical strata occurring in Massachusetts; among others, Nahant and Braintree for the Cambrian, Attleboro for the Carboniferous, Mount Holyoke for the Triassic, Gay Head for the Cretaceous and Tertiary, Rockport, Martha's Vineyard, and claypits of Cambridge for the Glacial Champlain.
The work in this course has been marked by enthusiasm, and the attendance has been very large, reaching a maximum of two hundred and ten, with an average attendance of seventy-one in the autumn of 1896. As a direct outcome of this work, and connected with it, several excursions to distant points have been made by parties under the charge of Professor Barton during the summer vacations. The most important of these were the following: A five-days' trip through western Massachusetts; a seven-weeks' trip to the Pacific coast, including visits to the Lake Superior copper regions, the Yellowstone Park, Butte, Montana, Great Shoshone Falls in Idaho, Columbia River, Mount Hood, Frazer Cañon in British Columbia, the Great Glacier of the Selkirks, and the Hot Springs at Banff; and two trips through Nova Scotia, one in 1894 and another in 1898. In each of the latter trips special attention has been paid to the various kinds of mining coal, iron, and gold, to the famous mineral localities like Cape Blomidon, and to the general geology.
Also, connected with this work, a special course of lessons has been given by Professor Barton each spring to a class from the Boston Normal School, and many occasional lectures and field lessons to the classes of the State Normal School at Framingham, and at other schools, teachers' clubs, etc. During the Boston exhibition of the cyclorama of the volcano of Kilauea, Hawaii, over three hundred teachers and a large number of schools visited that exhibition and listened to personal lectures by Professor Barton in direct connection with the work of The Teachers' School of Science.
Owing to the request of members of the field class, a private class was organized in the winter for a course of twelve lessons in mineralogy. This proving successful, and a demand for laboratory work being shown, this work was incorporated as a distinct course in the school. It was during the early part of this work that Professor Barton introduced for the first time in The Teachers' School of Science the system of daily and final examinations—a system since followed as the general practice of the school and now considered as one of its most fundamental features.
This course, after various experiments, has finally developed into a definite four-years' course of instruction, at the end of which those members who have met all the requirements receive the diploma of the school. The full four-years' course is designed to give a thorough training in the fundamental principles of geological science. Each year is given a series of fifteen lessons of two hours each, partly laboratory, partly lecture, and fully illustrated with specimens and diagrams. The first year's work is devoted to mineralogy. One introductory lecture is given on the principles of chemistry as the basis of understanding the composition of minerals, and the four following lessons are devoted to a study of the physical properties, mainly crystallography. During the remaining lessons, about one hundred and fifty of the commonest mineral species are studied, the class being required to learn to recognize each species and be able to tell its composition.
The second year's work with lithology is carried on largely in the same way as with mineralogy. At first a brief review is made of the most important rock-forming minerals. Then all the commoner species of rocks are taken up and studied, so as to learn to recognize each species at sight and to tell its composition. Besides this, lectures are given upon the origin of the rocks and the derivation of their component materials, involving a large amount of dynamical geology.