There is not a more interesting science than geology, which, as our
readers are aware, treats principally of mud and minerals. The association
at Hookham-cum-Snivey has been very active during the summer, and may be
said to have been up to its knees in dirt and filth, gravel and gypsum,
coal, clay and conglomerate, for a very considerable period.
It having been determined to open a sewer where the old Hookham-road meets
with the ancient Roman footpath at Snivey, the junction of which gives
name to the modern town, the Geological Association passed a strong
resolution, in which it was asserted, that the opportunity had at length
arrived for solving the great doubt that had long perplexed the minds of
the inhabitants as to whether the soil in the neighbourhood was
crustaceous or carboniferous. The _crusta_ceous party had been long
triumphing in the fact, that a mouldy piece of bread had been found at two
feet below the surface, when digging for the foundation of a swing erected
in a garden in the neighbourhood; but the _carboni_ferous enthusiasts had
been thrown into ecstacies, by the sexton having come upon a regular
_strata_ of undoubted cinders, in clearing out a piece of ground at the
back of the parson's residence. Some evil-disposed persons had the malice
to say that the spot had been formerly the site of a subsequently-filled-up
dusthole; but the _crusta_ceous party, depending as they did upon a single
piece of bread--_all crumb_ too--however genuine, could not be said to
have so much to go upon as the _carboni_ferous section, with their heap of
cinders, the latter being large in quantity, though of doubtful authority.
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