Henry Lawson

Name: The Geological Spieler
Author: Henry Lawson

Summary

“The Geological Spieler”, published in 1896, is a work by Henry Lawson. It explores elements such as Steelman, boss and Smith.

Quotes from The Geological Spieler (Henry Lawson)

Henry Lawson, The Geological Spieler (1896)

“ After breakfast and when the men were going to work Steelman and Smith would go out along the line with the black bag and poke round amongst the “layers and stratas” in sight of the works for a while, as an evidence of good faith; then they’d drift off casually into the bush, camp in a retired and sheltered spot, and light a fire when the weather was cold, and Steelman would lie on the grass and read and smoke and lay plans for the future and improve Smith’s mind until they reckoned it was about dinner-time. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Lawson, The Geological Spieler (1896)

“ I should like to make a stay here for a day or so. Your work opens right into my hands. I cannot remember seeing a geological formation which interested me so much. Look at the face of that cutting, for instance. Why! you can almost read the history of the geological world from yesterday—this morning as it were—beginning with the super-surface on top and going right down through the different layers and stratas—through the vanished ages—right down and back to the pre-historical—to the very primeval or fundamental geological formations! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Lawson, The Geological Spieler (1896)

“ And Steelman studied the face of the cutting as if he could read it like a book, with every layer or stratum a chapter, and every streak a note of explanation. The boss seemed to be getting interested, and Steelman gained confidence and proceeded to identify and classify the different “stratas and layers,” and fix their ages, and describe the conditions and politics of man in their different times, for the boss’s benefit. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Lawson, The Geological Spieler (1896)

“ The boss said he understood.
Steelman found an opportunity to wink sharply and severely at Smith, who had been careless enough to allow his features to relapse into a vacant grin.
“It is generally known even amongst the ignorant that rock grows—grows from the outside—but the rock here, a specimen of which I hold in my hand, is now in the process of decomposition; to be plain it is rotting—in an advanced stage of decomposition—so much so that you are not able to identify it with any geological period or formation, even as you may not be able to identify any other extremely decomposed body.” ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Lawson, The Geological Spieler (1896)

“ THERE’S nothing so interesting as Geology, even to common and ignorant people, especially when you have a bank or the side of a cutting, studded with fossil fish and things and oysters that were stale when Adam was fresh to illustrate by. (Remark made by Steelman, professional wanderer, to his pal and pupil, Smith.)
THE FIRST man that Steelman and Smith came up to on the last embankment, where they struck the new railway line, was a heavy, gloomy, labouring man with bowyangs on and straps round his wrists. Steelman bade him the time of day and had a few words with him over the weather. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Lawson, The Geological Spieler (1896)

“ Why, it’s all the boss can do to write his own name. Now that lanky sandy cove with the birth-mark grin—it’s him that’s had the college education.”
“I think we’ll make a start to-morrow,” said Steelman to Smith in the privacy of their whare. “There’s too much humour and levity in this camp to suit a serious scientific gentleman like myself.”
This work is in the public domain in Australia because it was created in Australia and the term of copyright has expired. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Lawson, The Geological Spieler (1896)

“ Its position on that layer is no doubt due to volcanic upheavals—such disturbances, or rather the results of such disturbances, have been and are the cause of the greatest trouble to geologists—endless errors and controversy. You see we must study the country, not as it appears now, but as it would appear had the natural geological growth been left to mature undisturbed ”

Henry Lawson

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Quotes from The Geological Spieler (Henry Lawson)

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