David T. Ansted

"... Owing to the very minute proportion in which gold is often associated with rocks and mineral substances, it does not generally pay the cost of working; and the districts therefore known as auriferous or "gold-producing," in the the commercial sense of the term, are not so numerous ... Nearly all the gold of commerce has for a long time been obtained from , Brazil, Transylvania, Africa, the East Indian islands, and Carolina in the United States; the whole annual supply being estimated at about 80,000 pounds weight, and its value being about five millions . This however must be regarded as only an approximate value of the average of several years, as the supplies have for some time been increasing rapidly from the Russian mines."

"The earth on which we live has too great an influence on ourselves, directly and indirectly, to justify ignorance on the subject of its nature and constitution, or the laws which govern its material existence. The history of the present is too nearly connected with, and too directly derived from, the events of the past to allow us safely to neglect it; and the mode of arrangement of the materials of which the outer film of matter, sometimes called the "," is composed, too deeply involves the question of the daily and yearly change that takes place in what we see about us, to permit with safely any indifference in the comparison of results, often hardly to be distinguished except in degree, and in the probable date of their occurrence. In all these matters the investigations concerning the earth's history, which are most generally understood by the term Geology, are found to be very interesting and important in a general sense, and afford much useful information ..."

"Nature offers many of her books for our study; for every department of knowledge, large or small, may be looked on as a separate volume. Astronomy supplies not a few, Chemistry many more, Zoology and Botany each its quota. Of these a number have been read and studied with more or less success. In a few cases we seem to have learnt something of the general plan of Nature; in others, mere glimpses are made out of local and partial phenomena. Many departments have only lately attracted attention; many, probably, there are which are not yet known to exist. Some, on the other hand, have been in course of development ever since man was an intelligent and observing animal, recording his own experiences for the benefit of future races."

"Europe and Asia are not naturally separated; that is, there is no large ocean and no unbroken chain of lofty mountains serving as a barrier to prevent the inhabitants of the one from entering the other. A , not much higher than those of Scotland, and a , are the boundaries that separate them geographically. The two countries of Russia and Turkey, which alone approach the boundary line, possess territory on both sides of it."