"In most of the sciences this deeper exercise of scientific thought requires for its successful pursuit artificial aids to the common senses of observation. Chemistry must have its purified acids and reagents, test tubes, and delicate scales for measurement of weight and volume. Mineralogy must have its chemical analyses, or optical measurements so fine that microscopes of highest power are essential tools for the investigation. Physics must have the most delicate measurements of time and space and weight. Botany, for the earlier stages of study, is fully equal to geology in these respects, but its scope is much less general, Zoology requires dissections calling for skill in manipulation, and in other respects is ill adapted to general classes. But precision in the intellectual processes of observation and reasoning can be cultivated in the use of geological facts to their highest and widest perfection, with scarcely any aids to the normal faculties of observation. A couple of hammers, a pocket lens, a chisel and a few pointed steel tools for revealing fossils, a tape line, compass and clinometer are the few equipments that will enable the geologist to carry his investigations to almost any degree of thoroughness."Williams, H.S., 1893, Geology as a Part of a College Curriculum: The Journal of Geology, v. 1, p. 38-46.
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