Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1890-1891 [PAGE 59]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

COLLEGE OF NATURAL SCIENCE.

57

together with synopses and descriptions of the families to which they belong, are furnished the students, and the essential facts, not discoverable by direct observation, are given in lectures or acquired by study of text. Practice in field observation is given as opportunity offers, and all are taught the ordinary methods of the collection, preparation, and care of specimens, together with the approved methods of controlling the ravages of the injurious species. A personal study, continuous for the term, of the life history and habit of some insect species, is made by each student and is finally reported in the form of a thesis. In both field and laboratory work, an extraordinary opportunity is offered to competent students of this course to observe and assist in practical entomological work and original research. Geology.—The course in geology covers a period of twenty-two weeks, two hours daily. The scheme of instruction comprises : The study of a series of localities in which great surface changes have recently taken place, in order to discover the characteristics of the forces which produced the changes and the tool-marks by which their action in former times may be traced. The mineral composition of the different kinds of rocks ; the changes produced in their composition by the action of underground water ; the conditions under which each species was formed and the relation between these conditions, and the structure of the resulting rock ; a series of analyses covering most of the varieties of crystalline and sedimentary rocks, and the collection and identification of such erratics as can be obtained from, the drift. A somewhat rapid review of the qualities and distribution of those substances found most useful in the arts, together with the conditions which have produced them. A study of the sub-divisions of geologic time as laid down in Dana's Manual, with the physical and organic changes which characterize them, and the distribution of the rocks laid down during each period. An analytical study of the larger groups of fossils, with many of the more common genera and species. A second course of eleven weeks, two hours daily, is offered to students from the chemical, civil engineering, and language courses, in which the entire subject is outlined ; detailed study is made of a few of the more important points, and some acquaintance with both rocks and fossils is gained. A third course, one hour daily for eleven weeks, for students in mining,