Strata: Musings of a Rockhound

Strata: Musings of a Rockhound is an account of some salient points of a geological wanderer’s career. A relaxed read in the tradition of the literature of the American wilderness . Naturalist meditations in the genre which goes back to early colonial governor John Winthrop and comes down to us from contemporaries like Annie Dillard. The tradition is often epitomized in Henry David Thoreau’s account of his sojourn at Walden Pond. Like Thoreau’s, this writer’s philosophical journeys have certain fictional elements, and a rhetorical purpose - at times like New Testament parables, and in a few places like the Sermon on the Mount. But geological subjects are the vehicle and basement rock of these chapters, from thoughts on earth’s origins, to discussions of precious and semi-precious stones. Purely on the level of natural studies there are many fascinating pages here. Whatever his true vocation, the author likes stones, and has spent a lot of time hunting them, shaping them, and learning their lore. The narrative captures the tension between the connectedness of all things – contingency and the great gaps in human knowledge. The narrator’s wanderings in the mountains, mines, and minerals of North America provide abundant ramblings on both of these perspectives. James H. Trott has written and published a number of books of poetry, two novels, and a memoir. Together with his wife, Roseann, he edited a substantial anthology of Christian poetry in English. Most recently he published the third volume of The Travels of Apa Oupspi, a prequel/sequel to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.