Genre:

Letter

Subjects:

Amusement, Endeavour, Collecting, Palaeontology, Mineralogy, Wonder, Archaeology, Geology

    Charles thanks his father for having taught him 'the folly and danger of idleness'. He hopes to make good use of his time in Bakewell, and means 'to make a collection of fossils and minerals'. Describes wonderful palaeontological finds in the locality, than which 'few places [...] yield better opportunities'. His uncle, who is directing him, calls him 'his little antiquary'; he tells Charles that the organic remains are '"the medals of creation", and have enabled clever men to learn the different ages of the deposits in which they are found'. He is also helping his nephew to study another class of antiquities—the 'documentary history of the neighbourhood'. (348) The layers of strata are described as graduating from the geological into the archaeological.