This Puzzling Planet (1928) by Edwin Tenney Brewster (PDF )

The book can be good introduction for geology for children. Simple way and illustrations.

Edwin Tenney Brewster’s This Puzzling Planet (1928) is a sweeping, accessible exploration of geology that blends scientific explanation with literary flair. It remains notable for its attempt to make Earth’s deep history intelligible to general readers at a time when geology was rapidly evolving.

From introduction:

For so very large an object, the earth gets curiously little attention nowadays from the ama-teur of natural history. Most men know something of building materials. Most women have an interest in cut gems. All children have been put through an absurd and most uninteresting course in what they are too apt to designate as “G’og-raphy.” Some people still walk over the hills. But in general the public is not interested in the earth. And yet, on the face of things, the study of earth-science might well be the first concern of the amateur naturalist. Its materials are always at hand—mountain crag and rustic glen, railway cutting, cellar hole. One can not look anywhere without seeing the bones of the earth. Moreover, other dilettanti must spy out their material, dry it in presses, store it in bottles, arrange it in cabinets. 

The geologist, on a journey, has only to flatten his nose against his car window to attain whole days of delight. Altogether, for many reasons, if one is to take up any branch of science purely for the interest and joy of it, then our presen

1. Shepherd Against Sartor – p. 19  

2. The North America of Ours – p. 30  

3. The Geology of Common Sense – p. 47  

4. The Flood Theory of Fossils – p. 63  

5. The Onion-Coat Earth – p. 79  

6. The Divisions of Geologic Time – p. 99  

7. Where the Fossils Come In – p. 116  

8. What Is Inside the Earth – p. 134  

9. The Lesson of the Earthquake Wave – p. 152  

10. Continents Adrift – p. 168  

11. Faults, Earthquakes, and Rift Valleys – p. 180  

12. The Making of Mountains – p. 192  

13. Faucets and Fours (likely “Faults and Folds”) – p. 204  

14. The Carving of the Landscape – p. 218  

15. Ice-Ages, Old and New – p. 235  

16. The Chronology of an Ice Age – p. 251  

17. The Climaxes of Geologic Time – p. 262  

18. Fertile Lavas Without Fossils – p. 281  

19. The Beginnings of the World – p. 295  

20. Appendix: Table of the Greater Divisions of Geologic Time – p. 310  

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