The following is my translation of an article called: Volkstümliche Erdgeschichte, Geologische Umschau von Kr. Fickenscher. It appeared in a German popular science magazine, Kosmos Handweiser für Naturfreunde 1914, Heft 4, Seiten 145-147.
Rather than being intended as an accessible introduction to geology, this article is more of a battle cry to make geology properly accessible.
Several German words in this article are difficult to properly translate for cultural reasons. English equivalents don't spring readily to mind. Volkstümliche Erdgeschichte refers to a geology that's aimed at the folk; laypersons. Heimatkunde could literally be termed 'local studies, but that phrase doesn't cover the whole scope. Heimatkunde can bring together any or all aspects of a particular area; local history, culture, natural history, geology. As young German school kids could tell you, it still features in the primary school curriculum.
Personally, I find the paragraphs unnecessarily long. However, I've left them as printed.
I'm not aware of any previous translations.
Trevor Dykes.

Popular geology, a geological review by Kr. Frickenscher.
One hears today more than ever before about the history of the Earth, the geology and, therefore, it is not unreasonable to ask how one could explain this. The answer would be: firstly, this history of the Earth is still relatively a very young science in terms of time, and secondly, as it is also one of the widest based sciences, it offers exceptionally much of significance to modern people in connection with the clarity and depth of their perception of the world and their position within the environment on the one hand and, on the other, in connection with enrichment of their usual living requirements. With the following, we will look more closely at both aspects of geology and its great significance for education of the people, and demonstrate this namely with examples drawn from experience.

With regards to the field of scientific education and knowledge, it is above all Heimatkunde through which wider circles have found their way to geology and, in exchange, geology has experienced enrichment and depth from such local studies, and one has learned increasingly to appreciate them. Like few other branches of knowledge, the geology is a science based securely on the ground and, therefore, its inclusion in Heimatkunde is revealing; it is precisely geology that is turned to as local studies and local thought gain ever more in interest. It also makes the magic of home localities uncommonly more interesting and still deeper; the history of the Earth leads us deep into the structure of local natural history, and an internal recognition and experience of the significant words of Schiller from William Tell: "here are the strong roots of your power" will come more and more to mind. (Hier sind die starken Würzeln deiner Kraft.) But not only the roots of our knowledge lie hidden below our home soils. In a purer and more immediate way than from anywhere else, this is also where we increase our range of knowledge. The primary requirement is that we learn how to properly observe, and this will first happen in the local area, even if the appearance suggests little attractiveness for science or of landscape, and this can change from diligent learning in connection with a respectable love for the home soil, and allow us to appreciate unexpected wonders. It is also the geology that allows us to sensibly experience the interconnectedness amongst the goings on in our local natural world. Should we also wish to pursue geology, then the best way of first learning the basic terminology is also to begin with the geology of the home area. It is not only the most important aspect for the beginner, but also fro the experienced expert; then the more compact and complete the construction of the observed individual facts is, then the clearer will be the development of geological history of the local landscape. While it is true that geology can only be fruitfully engaged in outside in the natural world, it is also true that success with local natural history will be best achieved precisely in the district where one constantly resides, or in which one spends the greatest part of one's life. When one does not recognise this, then one moves into a confusion of learning material that is spinning in free air. One wanted to research and understand the processes behind the development of our Earth, but without paying particular regard to the conditions and processes according to which this Earth still constantly changes and forms. Only can a very strict, scientific assessment of the general geological (dynamic) conditions can begin to provide enlightenment concerning the question: How did all the old rock layers form, and how did things look at this or that time? Only if we begin with the local area, and concentrate deeply upon that, can we come nearer to answering such questions. Years or decades of observing geological processes, apparently worthless and trivial observation, can generally be of great significance for an understanding of the local landscape, and also for the development of geological science, should one set such observations in the right light, and find the correct interrelationships. Let us be led in this sense on our journeys and then, on the one hand, we will come to recognize ever more of the sense of geological knowledge and, on the other hand, understand more about the great difficulties that scientific geology has to contend with. Nowhere else is it more difficult than here to reach generally applicable conclusions as each district, each spot ot the Earth, has its own developmental history.

Our local area will first become properly comprehensible to us from methods of geological observation, and it will show us a landscape as if seen with entirely different eyes. Its construction, its skeleton, the shapes of the landscape are all dependent upon geological forces; we will come closer to the causes for the picture of the landscape if we concern ourselves with its internal construction. The shapes of the land are covered by a blanket of plants, the local variations of which are often only comprehensible through the view of a geological researcher. We can speak here of dependency of the blanket of plants on the underlying support. But it is not only wild growing plants that are dependent upon this support, but also planted domestic crops; furthermore, economic and professional life is dictated by the geological conditions of an area of land. Connections and interrelationships show us the story of the Earth in rich details, and they add up to a high degree of the underlying causes (causalities) of our age. Our roamings and ramblings will also be much more enjoyable should we be able to take pleasure from the landscape combined with an understanding which an involvement in the history of the Earth can help us achieve. Our home locality will always remain an unending spring from which we must drink for our entire lifetime.

For such knowledge to achieve more scope among the general public, then the beginning will have to be made in the school during the years when the childish character -which nature has provided us with- is still in its most receptive state for all impressions. When, on the one hand, a love of home and truth, a healthy emotional life and physical well-being are combined, on the other hand, when a sense for observation and powers for recognition are simultaneously encouraged and developed, then where can this better occur than within the freedom of nature? Here can the teacher and the taught also take air and energy along with their school work, physical and emotional provision can also partly be taken care of, and exploration, natural historical and historical lessons all come together as a sensible entity. It is precisely the primary school teachers, in whose hands the future of our people really lies, who are called upon here. Exploratory walks in the local area are best done with a bit of geological education in the upper classes of the primary schools. It is not that geology could, or should, be seen as a study subject in itself, but a geological element in Heimatkunde can and will be of great value. The author of these lines has often had the opportunity to introduce pupils of all ages to geological aspects in the local area. Always, the intellectual involvement was both eager and fruitful. That primary school pupils are not yet mature enough for geological instruction is only a figment of the imagination that has arisen in the school room; naturally, an appropriate teacher, who is also a master of geological knowledge, can find the right selection for whichever age. However, such education should almost always take place in the open air, as seeing is the main thing for children. One shows and explains to the primary school pupils, for example, the development of sand from the solid rock, the appearances of weathering, the new and old inroads and deposits of the rivers and streams, and the particularities of their courses; the composition of the arable earth, the dependence of plants upon the subterranean. One leads these young people into quarries and chasms, and shows them the various rocks there, explains about the qualities and uses of the stone and so on. In this way, the teacher can lead the pupils far back into the historical development of the Earth even in the middle of the home area, but also into the causes and the interconnections with present day life. This would soon allow an inner relationship between the teacher and pupils to develop, the apparent opposites of school and life would diminish as school itself would be filled with life and, in the best senses, be a preparation for life. If a teacher continually brings such points of view into play in this sense, then geology and local studies will be brought closer to the pupils, and they will recognise what is means to have done more for the intellectual development of the children than can be achieved by plaguing them for years on the school benches with names, numbers of residents and figures of height for distant, unimportant towns and mountains. A geological component must be included in the geographical education due to the recognition that geography is the intellectual strand, indeed, the very foundation of the scientific geography, and not some kind of sub-line, and this must finally be brought into practice. The higher schools may not simply restrict themselves to descriptions of features in landscapes such as mountains and plains, gullies, waterfalls and marshes, but must rather ask about the where from and the where to of these landscape features; in short, the processes of change of the picture of the landscape will present the main point based on geographical observation, the starting point of geographical knowledge. Only then can one speak of geographical education. Therefore, it is urgently desired that geographical education will receive an increasing number of teachers themselves educated in realities and natural science.

Such knowledge, that is a living recognition, is based however, as has already been said, above all upon the attentive looking and observation that one can best do for oneself in the local nature. How endlessly much and multi-faceted is provided in the school, and although we may travel to distant districts on holiday to enjoy difficult rambling on mountains and by glaciers, of what is by the entrance gate of our paternal town and its immediate environs we may know as good as nothing. You know -in order to cite an example- that the castle on the hill in Nuremberg reaches a height of up to 350 metres above the sea level and offers a wonderful view across the city and its surroundings, and that a castle had already been built upon the naked rock before the year of 1050. So it says in the local study books, and one makes the pupils learn it by heart. The teacher of geography and local studies, however, who begins from a geological perspective would do as follows. They teach their attentive listeners as they are gathered on the battlements of the Vestnerturm (a tower) -one indeed believes that such events occur, given the seriousness of learning and school- that, in ancient times, when history was not yet recorded by any human hand, the castle hill was connected with all the other chains of hills in the area. But, during the Ice Age which, in this region, was characterised by long, snow-rich winters and very profound rainy seasons, the chains of hills were gradually separated from one another, and a further plain gradually developed with hills around its margins and hill islands. The mighty floods came namely from the eastern face of the Jura mountains, and their material was deposited all around Nuremberg. Here, these floods allowed an internal lake to form for a while. Because of this, a desert-like steppeland crossed with dunes formed and then, yet later, already in the time of the glaciers, dark, impenetrable swamp-forests covered wide areas and, in their midst, the rocky head of the castle hill arose to be seen from afar, and it offered refuge and security and a very favourable place for a settlement. Therefore, in later times, a castle arose on it, as one could have found no more suitable place for one. The teacher further explains about the development of Nuremberg in conjunction with the geological conditions, its geographical position and concludes by promising the pupils, on subsequent excursions, not to forget to provide the evidence for the correctness of their assertions, and would also advise the pupils as to how useful a little geographical knowledge can often be of use in their later professional lives; then this is not only the case for mining but, rather, will also often be of great significance for builders, agriculture and forestry, for engineers, for navigational fields such a rivers, railways, tunnels and canals.

Such popular geology does not seek to produce people -in terms of this article- that are dependent upon books for wisdom, not classroom academics, but rather it seeks to provide everybody with available means that will allow them to see for themselves, to learn how to research and think; it namely seeks to raise people that take joy from rambling, that attain an ever deeper appreciation of nature. It is geological rambling that was and remains the most important element; only that will geologically educate the eye to develop powers of geological perception.

I have been arranging geological rambles for a number of years in which representatives of different levels take part, but namely also primary and middle school teachers. The pleasant common objective allows the status differences to merge into the background and, in happy company, the professor will often work together with the labourer. The knowledge gained is also gradually taken by the teachers into the schools and, in this manner, it works towards refreshing and enlivening lessons on local studies and geology. Popular books on geological rambles are, in connection with short talks during these strolls, also the best means in order to reach the general public comparatively quickly and successfully, so as to make them aware of the construction and processes that are at work in the landscape. Also geological collections, which our observations are brought to a conclusion with, must be arranged in ways that are sympathetic to thoughts on the locality. While one may only introduce the most important parts of the general geology and rock layers of an area (by public sampling), the geological details of the area should be nearly completely represented, and with as large a number of characteristic samples as possible. Then this would do the most for helping people attentively see and observe what they always find around them in the neighbourhood during their Sunday rambles and strolls, and what they still require an explanation for. Much too little thought has often been given to appropriate labelling of specimens. The scientific name and the locality may suffice for the specialist, but not for the general public. One should not simply be able to write: Neteleisten, Burgsandstein from Nuremberg, but rather it should be additionally noted that these are from the basins of old ground springs, and one should prepare a small drawing so as to make the specimen as comprehensible as possible; only then will the collections be in the best sense informative and bring forth good fruit. But this learning from collections and observations in nature must be separated in time. We do not want to help the number of sport-like and thoughtless stone collectors to increase, no, the geology for us is a means towards the education of the nation. Of eternal change in the landscape, of life and death in the so called lifeless nature, of comprehensible development as shown to us by the fossils, these should be explained to the general public. Simply bringing stones together into piles brings nobody to geology, and the many collections that are built up during the youth, only later to be lost or left gathering dust in the attic or storage cupboard can very often be accounted for as these parts of the natural world were torn not from their natural context, and forced into artificial division--- only so far but not further! And then one increasingly forgot about the connections that those things had with others in the kingdom of creation, and the result was that those stones no longer answered the questions that had originally inspired us.

Recognising the ewigen, ehernen, großen Gesetz, as Goethe called it (Tranlator's note: There must be an English version of that quote, but I don't know it. The meaning is in the direction of the "eternal, iron, great law".), that can be identified from the phenomena must be our prime and worthiest challenge. Only then will we really be in a position to recognise and fulfil our challenge as humans, should we know the laws in accordance with which all natural phenomena occur, and in line with which all rational, productive human activities must be performed. Then we will clearly know what we really want, where we are heading, and attempt to accomplish that which we know and recognise to be good. Only when we fill ourselves with the idea that every grain of sand and every drop of water has its origins in connection with a world ruling series of causes, only then can we be scientists in the truest sense of the word. But we would then also never forget that we ourselves are but a small part of the main body, also only a small cog at work in the global clock. On the one hand, knowledge awakens within us a feeling of duty and responsibility and, on the other, a feeling of modesty. As we slowly observe the threads that connect us with Mother Nature, then the words of Faust can be grasped in their whole intensity:

Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt.

As all weave together to form the whole,
One in the other works and lives.

An index of more of my translations of old Kosmos articles can be found at:

Kosmos Translations Archive

A number of Mesozoic (and post-Mesozoic) location summaries can be found at Localities.