Pig copper, which is the least valuable form in which this metal is carried to market, is now quoted in the Atlantic cities at 19 cents per pound; sheathing, at 27; brazier's, at 32. I have no data at hand to show the amount of these articles consumed in the United States, and for which we are annually transmitting immense sums to enrich foreign States. But those who best appreciate the advantages of commerce will readily supply the estimate. It would be an interesting inquiry to ascertain how much of the sums yearly paid for sheathing copper, bolts, nails, engravers' plates, &c., is contributed to the wealth of the respective foreign States who possess mines of this metal. We can look back to a period in the history of Great Britain, when that power did not contribute one pound of copper to the commerce of Europe. During a period of nine years, closing with the memorable year (in American history) of 1775, the produce of the copper mines of Cornwall was 2,650 tons of fine copper. (SeeNote E.) Since that time, the yearly returns of those mines exhibit a constant increase; and the copper mines of Great Britain are now the most valuable in the world. The amount produced by the mines of Cornwall and Devon, after deducting the charges of smelting, for the single year of 1810, was 969,376 pounds sterling.(SeeNote F.) The clear profits of the Dolgoath mine, one of the richest in Cornwall, for a period of five months, during the year 1805, was £18,000, which is at the rate of £43,200, or $192,000, per annum. Next to Great Britain, the most considerable mines of Europe are those of Russia, Austria, Sweden, and Westphalia, as it was in 1808. Of less importance are those of Denmark, France, Saxony, Prussia, and Spain. The proportion in which the British mines exceed those of the most favored European nation is as 200,000 x 67,000. (SeeNote G.)There is another consideration connected with this subject which is worthy of remark. Should it be inquired what would be the effects of the purchase of these mines upon the condition of the Indian tribes, the reply is obvious. It would have the most beneficial tendency. They would not only profit by an exchange of their waste lands for goods, implements of husbandry, the stipulated services of blacksmiths, teachers, &c., but the intercourse would have a happy tendency to allay those bitter feelings which, through the instigation of the British authorities in the Canadas, they have manifested, and still continue to feel, in degree, towards the United States. The measures which the President has recently directed to be pursued to assuage these feelings of hostility, and to induce them to cherish proper sentiments of friendship and respect, are already in a train of execution that bids fair for success. Continued exertions, and the necessary and proper means, are all that seem necessary to confirm and complete the effect; and whatever measures have a tendency to increase the intercourse of American citizens with these "remote tribes," and to give them a true conception of the power and justice, and the pacific and benevolent policy of our Government, must favor and hasten such a result.I have the honor to be, sir,With the highest respect,Your most obedient servant,HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT,U. S. Indian Agent at the Sault Ste. Marie.HonJohn C. Calhoun,Secretary of War, Washington.Notes.(B.)Among the numerous superstitions which the Indian tribes entertain, that respecting mines is not the least remarkable. They are firmly impressed with a belief that any information communicated to the whites, disclosing the position of mines or metallic treasures situated upon their grounds, is displeasing to their manitos, and even to the Great Spirit himself, from whom they profess to derive every good and valuable gift; and that this offence never fails to be visited upon them in the loss of property, in the want of success in their customary pursuits or pastimes, in untimely death, or some other singular disaster or untoward event. This opinion, although certainly not a strange one to be cherished by a barbarous people, is, nevertheless, believed to have had its origin in the transactions of an era which is not only very well defined, but must ever remain conspicuous in the history of the discovery and settlement of America. It is very well known that the precious metals were the principal objects which led the Spanish invaders to penetrate into the interior of Mexico and Peru, and ultimately to devastate and conquer the country, to plunder and destroy its temples, and to tax and enslave its ill-fated inhabitants. It is equally certain that, to escape these scenes of cruelty and oppression, many tribes and fragments of tribes, when further resistance became hopeless, fled towards the north, preferring the enjoyment of liberty and tranquillity upon the chilly borders of the northern lakes, to the pains of servitude in the mild and delightful valleys of Mexico, and the golden plains of the Incas. In this way, many tribes who originally migrated from the north, along the Pacific Ocean, to the Gulf of California, and thence over all New Spain, were returned towards the north over the plains of Texas and the valley of the Mississippi; those tribes nearest the scenes of the greatest atrocities always pressing upon the remoter and less civilized, who, in turn, pressed upon the nations less enlightened than themselves, and finally drove them into the unfrequented forests of the north. Among these terrified tribes, the traditions of the Ojibwais affirm that their ancestors came, and that they originally dwelt in a country destituteof snows. Many tribes who now speak idioms of their language were left upon the way, and have since taken distinctive names. Among these, are the Pottawatamies, the Ottoways, &c. The latter formerly were, as they still remain, the agriculturists. The Miamis and Shawnees, whose languages bear some affinity, preceded them in their flight. The Winnebagoes, speaking a separate and original tongue, came later, and preserve more distinct traditions of their migration. All these tribes carried with them the strong prejudices and fixed hatred excited by the cruelty, rapacity, and cupidity of their European conquerors; and, above all, of that insatiable thirst for gold and silver which led the Spaniards to sack their towns, burn their temples, and torture their people. Cruelty and injustice of so glaring a character must have made upon their minds too deep an impression ever to be forgotten, or completely erased from their traditions. To that memorable epoch we must, therefore, look for the origin of that cautious and distrustful disposition which these tribes have since manifested with regard to the mines and minerals situated upon their lands; and the circumstance seems to offer an abundant excuse, if not a justification, for those prevarications and evasions which present a continual series of embarrassment to every person who seeks through their aid to develop the mineral resources, or describe the natural productions, of their territories. Hence, too, the cause why they are prone to imagine that all mineral or metallic substances obtained or sought upon their lands, are susceptible of being converted ortransmutedinto the precious metals.(C.)The followingadditionallocalities of native copper, derived from sources entitled to respect, and accompanied, in some instances, by specimens of the metal, may here be given:—1. Grand Menou, or Isle Royal, Lake Superior. Captain——, of the schooner——, in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, on Lake Superior, describes this island as affording frequent masses of copper. While becalmed off its shores in the spring of 1822, and, afterwards, in coasting along the island for a distance of one hundred miles, his men frequently went ashore, and never failed to bring back with them lumps of metallic copper, which they found promiscuously scattered among the fragments of rock.These were more abundant in approaching its southwestern extremity, where they unite in representing it to exist in a solid vein. Specimens of limpid quartz, chalcedony, and striped agate, were also brought to me from this island. [J. S. J. J.]2. On the extremity of the great peninsula, called by the natives Meenaiewong, or Keweena Point, which forms so prominent a feature in the physiognomy of Lake Superior. It occurs in the detached form. [J. H. J. J.]3. At Point aux Beignes, which is the east cape of the entrance into L'Ance Quewiwenon. A mass from this place was raised from the sandstone rock, which predominates there. [J. Y. B.]4. At Caug Wudjieu, or the Porcupine Mountains, Lake Superior; in masses, enveloped with a green crust, along the banks of the Carp, or Neemaibee River, which originates in these mountains. [W. M. G. Y. J. J.]5. On the banks of Lac Courterroile. This lake lies near the source of the River Broule, or Cawesacotai, which enters Lake Superior near La Pointe. It occurs in the alluvial soil, which is a kind of loamy earth, with pebbles intermixed, but of a rich quality, and timbered with beech and maple. It is found mostly in small, flat masses, more or less oxidated. [B. G. J. G. Y.]6. In a vein on the shore of Lake Superior, between La Riviere de Mort and St. John's, a little to the west of Presque Isle. [J. J.]7. On the northeast branch of the Ontonagon River. [J. H.]8. In the precipitous bluffs called Le Portail, and the Pictured Rocks. A green matter oozes from the seams in these rocks, and forms a kind of stalactites, which is apparently a carbonate of copper. [G. Y.]These localities embrace a range of more than two hundred miles along the south shore of Lake Superior, which proves how intimately this metal and its ores are identified with the rocks and the soil of that region.(D.)In all our calculations respecting the position and advantages of these mines, too much stress cannot be laid upon the facilities of the lake navigation. It is believed that a ton of merchandise, or a barrel bulk, can be transported through the lakes at the same rates that are paid in the coasting trade of the United States.Nor is the risk greater. The best data which I can command, induce me to conclude that a quintal of copper can be conveyed from the place of shipment on Lake Superior, to the city of New York, forone dollar. The present price of transportation, for a barrel bulk, from Buffalo to Mackina, may be stated, on the average of freights, at 8s., New York. The mean weight of a barrel bulk, taking flour as the standard, may be safely put down at 200 lbs. gross, being 50 cents per cwt. But it must be recollected that there is no return freight; and, consequently, that this sum covers the expenses not only of the outward and return voyage, but still leaves a profit to the owner. Messrs. Gray and Griswold, sutlers of the 2d regiment, paid 9s.6d., New York, per barrel bulk, from Buffalo to the Sault. This gives a result of 59 cents per cwt. But, if a return cargo could be obtained, one-half of this sum would afford an equal profit on the voyage; and it is believed that the article of bar copper could at all times be conveyed from the Sault to Buffalo for 20 cents per cwt. Being a very convenient species of ballast, it would oftentimes be taken in lieu of stone, and, consequently, cost no greater sum than the price of carrying it on board. But the facilities and cheapness of the lake navigation cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by stating the price of provisions at the post of St. Mary's, every article of which is carried from 300 to 700 miles through the lakes. The following statement of the assistant commissary has been politely furnished at my request:—Sault Ste. Marie, October, 1822.Dear Sir:Agreeably to your request, I send you a statement of the actual cost of subsistence stores furnished at this post for the use of troops at present making the military establishment, ordered by the Government to this place.The prices of the several articles below enumerated are at a small advance on the stores of the settlers outside of the cantonment.The expenses of subsisting, or rather of maintaining, a garrison at this place will be as small, if not less, per annum, than at any other frontier post in our country. The provisions for the soldier cost as little, I believe, as at any other post, and next year we shall be able to raise all the forage for the use of our beefcattle, and the horses and oxen of the quartermaster's department.I am, dear sir, yours, &c.,W. BICKER,A. C. S. U. S. A.Statement of the Cost of United States Subsistence Stores at the Sault de Ste. Marie, 1822.Cents.Pork, per pound41/4Flour, per pound19/10Whiskey, per gallon29Fresh beef, per pound61/2Vinegar, per gallon22Salt, per bushel90Soap, per pound10Candles, per pound201/2Beans, per quart47/10The total cost of a soldier's ration is 9 cents and 1 mill per diem.WALTER BICKER,A. C. S. U. S. A.H. R. Schoolcraft, Esq.,U. S. I. Agent.(E.)Statement of the Returns of Copper Ores Smelted at the Mines of Cornwall (Eng.) from 1726 to 1775.—[Rees's Cyclopedia.]Periods.Tons of ore.Average priceper ton.Amount.Annual quantityof fine copper.1726 to 173564,800£ 7 15 10£ 473,500700 tons1736 to 174575,52078 6560,1068301746 to 175598,79078 0731,4571,0801756 to 1765169,69976 61,243,0451,8001766 to 1775264,2736 14 61,778,3372,650(F.)Statement of the Produce of the Mines of Cornwall and Devon (Eng.) for a period of four years, ending with 1811.Tons of ore.Fine copper.Averagestandardper ton.Annual amountafter deductingcharges of smelting.Tons.cwt.qrs.Tons.cwt.qrs.lbs.££s.1808Cornwall73,434217,1185117107781,34816Devon3,725007,11851171809Cornwall72,0381226,97217017122875,7842Devon3,210003651031810Cornwall80,2381437,0061325141969,37619Devon1811Cornwall73,57016,272002125769,3794Devon(G.)Table of the Annual Quantity of Copper raised from the Earth in Different Countries, in Quintals—the Quintal valued at 100 lbs.1.England200,0002.Russia67,0003.Austria, including Bohemia, Gallicia, Hungary, Transylvania, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Salzburg, and Moravia60,0004.Sweden22,0005.Westphalia, in 180817,2296.States of Denmark8,5007.Bavaria, including the Tyrol3,0008.France2,5009.Saxony, in 18081,32010.Prussia, as left by the treaty of Tilsit33711.Spanish European mines309Total,382,186(H.)I shall here give the synonoma for this tribe of Indians, which appears to have been first recognized by the United States as an independent tribe by Wayne's treaty of 1795,[241]under thename of Chipewa. This name has been retained in all subsequent treaties with them, not, however, without some discrepance in the orthography. These variations are chiefly marked by the introduction of the letterpat the beginning of the second syllable, or the vowelyannexed to the third; producing Chip-pe-wa, Chip-pe-way, and Chip-e-way. The French missionaries and traders, whose policy it was to discard the names of the aboriginal tribes from their conversations, bestowed upon this tribe, at a very early period, thenom de guerreofSaulteurs, orSauteurs, from the Sault or Falls of St. Mary's, which was the ancient seat of this tribe—a name which is still retained by the Canadians, and by many of the American traders. Among the early French writers, they were also sometimes denominatedOutchipouas. There is as little uniformity among travellers and geographers. Pinkerton, Darby, Morse, Carver, Mackenzie, and Herriot, either employ the word according to the orthography of Wayne's treaty, or with the modifications above noticed. The name of Chippewyans, employed by Mackenzie, relates to a tribe residing north and west of the sources of the Mississippi, who speak a language having no affinity, and are a distinct people. Henry, who was well versed in the Chippewa language, also conforms to the popular usage, but observes that the true name, as pronounced by themselves, is Ojibwa.Having taken pains to ascertain and fix the pronunciation of this word, I have not hesitated to introduce it into my correspondence and official accounts; but I am aware of my great temerity in so doing. Popular prejudices, and several of the authorities above cited, stand opposed to the proposed innovation. The continued use of the word "Chippewa" is also sanctioned by a name entitled to conclusive respect. "I write the word in this way," observes the Executive of Michigan, "because I am apprehensive the orthography is inveterately fixed, and not because I suppose it is correct." Still, there are reasons for changing it. Justice to this unfortunate race requires it. Since the popularapathy to their condition is such that every remembrance of their actual customs, manners, and traditions will probably perish with them, and theirname, ere long, be all that is left, it is at least incumbent upon us to transmitthatto posterity in its true sound—as the fathers and sachems pronounced it. If, then, there is an acknowledged error in this respect, shall we hesitate to correct it?IX.Rapid Glances at the Geology of Western New York, west of the Rome Summit, in 1820.[242]Rock Formations.—1. Assuming the area of the most eastwardly head of the Onondaga Valley, the Wood Creek, and the Rome Summit, and the valley of the Niagara, with an indefinite extent laterally, to form the limits of this inquiry; it is in coincidence with all known facts to say that it is a secondary region, consisting of the sedimentary and semi-crystalline strata, the lines of which are perfectly horizontal. Colored sandstone, generally red, forms the lowest observed stratum.Wherever streams have worn deep channels, they either disclose this rock or its adjuncts, the grits, or silicious sinter. It is apparent in the chasm at Niagara Falls, about half a mile belowthe cataract. It is often seen on the surface of the country, or buried slightly beneath the soil. In color, hardness, and other characters, there is a manifest variety. But, considered as a "formation," no doubt can exist of its unity. Its thickness can only be conjectured, as no labor has, so far as we know, penetrated through it.Judging from observations made in Cattaraugus County, in 1818, the coal measures have been completely swept from this area.2. Next in point of altitude, is the series of dark, carbonaceous, shelly slate rock. The thickness of this formation, as indicated at Niagara, cannot be less than ninety feet. It is also often a surface-rock in the district, forming portions of the banks of lakes, streams, &c. It is characterized by organic remains of nascent species. Portions of it also disclose rounded masses of pre-existing rocks.3. Last in the order of superposition, is the secondary limestone formation. It is, most commonly, of a dark, sedimentary aspect. It is not invariably so, but portions of it have a shining, semi-crystalline fracture. Shades of color also vary considerably, but it never, in the scale of colors, exceeds a whitish-gray. Viewed at different localities, the mass is either compact, fetid, shelly, or silicious. Much of it produces good quicklime. It is often rendered "bastard," as the phrase is, by argillaceous and earthy impurities. Organic impressions, and remains of sea shells and coarse corals are frequent. Encrinites give some portions of it the appearance of eyed or dotted secondary marble. The occurrence of a hard variety of hornstone, which is not flint, is apparently confined to the compact, fetid variety. This formation, like the two preceding, may be found to consist of separate strata. Localities, joining, overlaying, substrata, mineral contents, organic species, &c., require observation. The following notices are added.Geological Changes.—The evidences which are furnished of ancient submersion, which has "changed and overturned" vast portions of the solid land, are neither few nor equivocal. They are seen as well in the rock strata as the alluvial soils. The most elevated hills and the lowest valleys are equally productive of the evidences of extensive changes. The whole aspect of the country seems to attest to the ancient dominion of water. But the moststriking proof of its agency is, perhaps, found in the sea-shells, polypi, and crustacea, which are preserved, in their outlines, in solid strata. Some of these are most vivid in their shapes and ray-like markings, particularly the univalve shells.A subsequent change, in the surface of the country, is indicated by the marks of attrition and watery action upon the faces of these rocks, in situations greatly elevated above the present water-levels. This action must, consequently, be referred to a period when extensive submersions, in the nature of lakes or semi-seas, existed; for there is no power in present lakes and streams, however swelled and reinforced by rains or melting snows, to reach even a moiety of the elevation of these ancient water-marks. It is to the era of these last submersions that we are encouraged, by evidences, to look, as the disturbing cause which has buried trees, leaves, and bones in alluvial soils.Action of Water.—In examining some portions of the flat lands of Ontario County, such as the township of Phelps, there are strata of a fine sedimentary soil, such as might be expected to result from the settlings of water not greatly agitated. The bottoms of mill-ponds afford an analogous species of soil. In these level districts, there are also not unfrequently observed fields of bare flat rock, of the limestone species, which is checkered in its surface, conveying the idea of their having formed a flooring to some former lake. An appearance of this kind may be seen a few hundred yards from the meeting-house in Phelps. The rock, in this instance, is a carbonate of lime, and affords organic remains.The Oak Openings, in Erie County, are a kind of natural meadows or prairies. Many suppose them to have been ancient clearings; but of this the Indians have no tradition, and the evidences of such a settlement are by no means satisfactory. In many places, on these extensive openings, there are naked and barren layers of calcareous rock, whose surface exhibits appearances analogous to those in Ontario. The limestone is, however, of a darker color, and contains numerous imbedded nodules of hornstone, and it emits a fetid odor on breaking.In crossing the elevated calcareous highlands, between Danville and Arkport, in Steuben County, we perceive in the bluff rocks which bound the valley of the Conestoga River, at an elevation ofperhaps two hundred feet above its bed, horizontal water-marks, deeply impressed upon the face of the rocks, as if the waters had formerly stood at that level; and it is impossible to resist the conviction, in travelling over this rugged district of country, that it has not been totally submerged by waters, which have been suddenly drawn off, but by gradual or periodical exhaustions, standing for many ages at different levels.Slate Rocks.—These were, not inaptly, denominated "brittle slate," by Dr. Mitchell, in 1809. Brittleness is their pervading character; and it is owing to this quality, in a formation of great thickness, that the action of the water at Niagara Falls is of so very striking a character. There is no portion of the Niagara slate solid enough to be used for building stone. It is uniformly shelly, and exhibits, even in hand specimens, its reproduced character.[243]Those portions of the general formation which are solid constitute silicious slate. A locality of this variety may be seen at the Halfway House, eight miles east of Canandaigua.Seneca Lake.—This clear and picturesque lake has its bed in the secondary formations, and may be referred to as exhibiting localities of them. Its upper parts afford the compact limestone in quadrangular blocks. Large portions of its margin consist of the brittle carbonaceous slate. The shores, from the vicinity of Rose's Farm to Appletown, are little else but a continuous bank of the slate. On the opposite coast, it is also visible at various localities below the Crooked Lake inlet. Cashong Creek may be particularly referred to. A short ascent of its valley brings the spectator into a scene where the walled masses of slaty rock assume a character of grandeur. Among the recent portions which have been thrown into the valley, may be seen masses having large species of the stem-like organic remains, which indicate its newness as a formation. Here are also disclosed orbicular masses, and pebbles of other rocks, imbedded in the slate. These prove it to be—what its texture would, in other places, indicate—a secondary slate.The order of position on the banks of this lake is the same as at Niagara; but the sandstone is not apparent above the water line. Its existence, in the bed of the lake, may be satisfactorilyinferred, from the masses of yellow coarse sand which are driven up at the foot of the lake, and particularly around its outlet. When the winds prevail, the water is driven violently against this part of the shore. As it is an alluvial flat, they soon surmount the stated margin, and produce a partial inundation. On their recession, wreathes of sand remain.Diluvial Elevations.—Bounding the alluvial plain of the Seneca outlet westward, there is a series of remarkable wave-like ridges, whose direction is parallel to that of the lake. On the declivity-stop of the first of these ridges, stands the village of Geneva, the buildings of which are thus displayed in an amphitheatric manner above the clear expanse of the lake. The substratum of these ridges is an argillaceous, compact soil of the eldest formation. Some parts of it are a stiff clay, and yield septaria; but there is no considerable portion of it, which has been examined, wholly destitute of primitive boulders and pebbles. Little doubt can remain but that it is the result of the broken-down slaty rock mixed with the extraneous and far-fetched primitive masses. They are conclusive of its diluvial character. I have attentively examined this formation, in the section of it exposed on the shores of the lake between the village of Geneva and Two-mile Point. All its solid, stony contents are piled along the margin of the lake, the soil being completely washed away. Granite, quartz, and trap pebble-stones and boulders, are here promiscuously strewn with recent debris. Over the argillaceous deposit is spread a mantle of newer soil, of unequal depth and character, which forms, exclusively, the theatre of farming and horticultural labors.White Springs.—On the declivity of one of these parallel ridges, at the distance of two miles from the lake, is found an extensive bed of white marl. This deposit, which is on the estate of the late Judge Nicholas, covers many acres, and yields so copious a spring of pure water that it is sufficient, at the distance of about three hundred yards from its issue, to turn a gristmill. There are to be found in this bed of marl several species of helix and voluta. The marl is generally covered with an alluvial deposit of two feet in depth. The depth of the marl itself is unexplored. Is not this marl the result of decomposed sea shells?Beds of Quartzose Sand.—In certain parts of the Seneca Valley are found limited deposits of a white quartzose sand, in a state of comparative purity. This substance is capable of being readily vitrified by the addition of alkaline fluxes, and is thus converted into glass. Its existence, as a local deposit, beneath separate strata of alluvial soil, supporting a growth of trees and shrubs, is such as to render it probable that the present stream, in its exhausted state, could have had no agency in producing these deposits. If we are compelled to look to a former condition of the waters passing off through this valley, as affording the requisite power of deposit, we are then carried back to an era in the geology of the country which we must refer to, to account for by far the greater number of changes in all its recent soils. Indeed, wherever we examine these soils, out of the range comprehended between high- and low-water mark, on any existing lake or stream, there will be found occasion to resort to the agency of more general and anterior submersions. A few localities may be appealed to.Fossil Wood.—In digging a well in the Genesee Valley, one mile east of the river (at Hosmer's), part of the trunk of a tree, of mature growth, was found at the depth of forty-one feet below the surface. The soil was a loose sand mixed with gravel. The position is more elevated than the flats, so called.Antlers.—A large pair of elk's horns were discovered in an excavation made for the foundation of a mill at Clyde, in Seneca County. They were imbedded in alluvial soil, ten feet below the surface. This surface had been cleared of elm and other forest trees of mature growth. Near the same place, logs of wood were found at the depth of fourteen feet. These discoveries were made in the valley of Clyde River, which is formed by the junction of the Canandaigua Outlet with Mud Creek.Frogs Enclosed in the Geological Column.—At Carthage, on the Genesee, twelve or fifteen frogs were found in excavating a layer of compact clay marl, about nine feet below the surface. The position is several hundred feet above the bed of the Genesee River, to which elevation no one, after viewing the spot, will deem it probable its waters could have reached, this side of the diluvian era.A frog was dug out of the solid rock, at Lockport, NiagaraCounty, by the workmen engaged in excavating the canal. It was enveloped by the limestone which abounds in cavities filled with crystals of strontian and dog-tooth spar. It came to life for a few moments, and then expired. There was no aperture by which it could possibly communicate with the atmospheric air. The cavity was only large enough to retain it, without allowing room for motion.The inclosure of animals of the inferior classes in the sedimentary strata, and even in the most solid substance of rock, is a fact which has been frequently noticed, without, however, any very satisfactory theory having been given of the process, at least to common apprehension.VideAddenda, for some further notices of this kind.Fossil Vegetation.—A well was dug in the lower part of the village of Geneva, in 1820, which disclosed, at the depth of thirteen feet, the branches and buds of a cedar-tree. They were found lying across the excavation, and in the sides of it; and were in excellent preservation. No one could conjecture in what age they had been buried. But this discovery would seem to establish the position that the catastrophe occurredin the spring.Madrepore.—A madrepore, measuring eight inches in diameter, was found in the upland soil of Caledonia, Genesee County. Smaller specimens of the same species occur in that township. Madrepores of a large size have also been found imbedded in the soil, or lying on the surface, in various places in Cattaraugus and Alleghany counties. They are locally denominated petrified wasps' nests. The lands containing these loose fossil remains are contiguous to, or based on, secondary rocks at considerable elevations.Boulders and Primitive Gravel.—But the most abundant evidences of diluvial action are furnished by the masses of foreign crystalline rocks which are scattered, in blocks of various sizes, on the surface of the soil, or imbedded at all depths within it. Primitive rocks are foreign to the district, and these masses could not, therefore, have resulted from local disintegration. They must have been transported from a distance. They required not only an adequate cause for their removal, but one commensurate with the effects. Such a cause Cuvier supposes, in discussing the general question, may have existed in eruptions, or in theaction of oceanic masses of water, operating at an ancient period.The latter opinion appears to be generally adopted. Dr. Mitchell, in reference to northwestern boulders, attributes their distribution over secondary regions to the draining of interior seas or lakes. Mr. Hayden, in hisGeological Essays, refers them to the action of oceanic currents setting "from north and east to south and west."Subordinate and Equivalent Strata.—These constitute the most intricate subjects of reference. They are either adjuncts or residuary deposits of leading formations. But their order, as accompanying series, must sometimes be sought for by a previous determination of the formations themselves. Could we certainly know, for instance, that the sandstone of Western New York is or is not the true coal-sandstone, or the limestone is or is not the carboniferous limestone, it would at once direct to positive eras, and serve to impart confidence in the prediction of unknown deposits of an important character. But, in order to fix the formations, it is often the safest mode of procedure to employ the subordinate and local deposits as evidences of the character of the formations embracing them.Gypsum.—A stratum of gypsum of the plaster of Paris kind—that is, consisting of an admixture of the carbonate with the sulphate of lime—occurs on the banks of the Canandaigua outlet. It has been chiefly explored in the township of Phelps, Ontario. In visiting the principal bed (1820), I found the following order of deposits composing the banks of the outlet:—1. Alluvial soil of a dark, arenaceous, and mellow character, having small stones of the primitive kind sparingly interspersed, two and a half to three feet. Cultivated in improved farms.2. Shelly limestone, of an earthy, dull-gray color and loose texture, in layers, three feet.3. Limestone of a more firm character, but still shelly, or rather slaty, fissile, and easily quarried, six feet. This stratum contains iron pyrites in a decomposed state. Also, nodular or kidney-shaped masses of what the quarrymen callplaster-eggs—apparently snowy gypsum.4. Plaster of Paris, ten feet. This stratum yields granular, earthy, fibrous, and foliated gypsum. It is the first two varietieswhich are quarried. In some places, the mass is firm enough to admit of blasting. In others, it is loose and veiny, and is readily broken up with iron bars and sledges. Portions of it appear to consist of a shelly limestone identical with No. 2. They are rejected in quarrying.5. Limestone similar to No. 3, four feet.At this depth it is covered by the waters of the outlet. How deep it extends is uncertain. The rapids at the village of Vienna are caused by shelving strata of this limestone.There is a suite character in these strata which appears to constitute them a single deposit. The plaster-bed at Canasaraga exists in a ledge more elevated in reference to the local stream, and presents a broader section of the limestone. The shades of difference which are observable in its color and texture, do not appear to indicate a difference of geological era. Nor do appearances denote, for the calcareous formation which embraces these beds, much antiquity in the scale of secondary rocks.Saliferous Red Clay-marl.—Examinations, at various points, render it a probable supposition that the red clay-marl of western New York is the equivalent for the new red sandstone, in positions where the latter is—as it often is—wanting. It is extensively deposited in the upland soils, in the range of the salt rock and gypsum counties, from the summit grounds of Oneida County west. It may be seen in various stages of the decomposition. I have more attentively examined it on the upper parts of the Scanado[244]and Oneida creeks. Large areas of it exist in Westmoreland, Verona, and Vernon townships, and bordering the valley grounds of the Oneida reservation, and the northerly portions of Sullivan County. The existence of salt water might, apparently, be searched for with as much probability of success, in the district thus indicated, as at more westerly points.Coal-Formation.—With a strong predisposition to regard our leading sandstone and limestone surface-formations as members of the "independent" or true coal-formation, inquiry has led me to relinquish the impression that they will, to any great degree, be found to yield this mineral. If the sandstone is—as facts indicate it to be—the new red or saliferous sandstone, it may be expectedto yield thin seams of coal, in distant places, but no deposit of this mineral which will reward exploration in this or its super-incumbent series of rocks, the slates, limestones, &c. It will result, that the coal-measures, properly so denominated, are a prior deposit in the order of series; and, should they hereafter be found, such a discovery must take place above the range of the sandstone, which is the basis rock at Niagara and Genesee Falls.Having premised the character of the sandstone, all the series occupying a position above it must derive their character, as secondary deposits, from this. The limestone cannot, therefore, be a part of the carboniferous or "medial." The slates, as shown at Cashong, are fragmentary, and rather nearer slaty grauwacks. The arenaceous and calcareous upper deposits assume nearly the position of the oolitic series, and, in fact, ought, in some localities, to be regarded as equivalents.Western Coal-Mines.—Much of the data employed in these inquiries is the result of previous examinations of the great coal deposits in the Ohio Valley, and other parts of the western country. Here we have the coal-sandstone and the slate clay, with slate, &c., alternating with the coal-measures. Such is the order of deposits at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela, where the formation is well developed, and where there exists, too, in the elevated valley hills, several repetitions of the series. The zechstone, or compact limestone, which is a pervading rock in the Mississippi Valley, occupies a position next above the great Mississippi sandstone.[245]It may always be distinguished from the shelly, entrochal limestone of the Genesee,[246]by the absence of gypsum and of the fetid odor emitted on fracture.Alleghany Valley.—A question of interest, in connection with the extent of the Ohio Valley coal-formation, arises from the attempt to fix the point to which this formation ascends the Alleghany Valley—being the direct avenue into Western New York. I have examined this valley in its entire length between Pittsburg and Olean, in Cattaraugus County, and have not been able to observe that there are any evidences of its terminationbelow the latter point. The general order and parallelism of strata remain the same. The coal stratum is apparently present. The qualities of the coal at Armstrong, and at various points below French Creek—the first primary fork of the river—are not distinguishable from the products of the Pittsburg galleries. Less search has been made above that point, but wherever the hills have been penetrated, they have—as at Brokenstraw—produced the bituminous coal. Above the Conawango Valley, which brings in the redundant waters of Chatauque Lake, the Alleghany discloses frequent rapids. The effect of parallelism upon the strata is to sink the coal-measures deeper as they ascend the Alleghany; and this cause may, in connection with the unexplored character of the country, be referred to in accounting for the absence of coal along this part of the line. The reappearance of traces of this mineral at Potato Creek, forty miles above Olean, is a proof, however, that the coal-formation extends to that point. This locality is a few miles within the limits of Pennsylvania. It occurs in a valley.Coal in Western New York.—The coal-bed above Olean is south of the summit of the Genesee, and not remote from its primary source. The expectation may be indulged that the western coal-formation embraces portions of Cattaraugus and Alleghany or Steuben counties. The noted spring of naphtha, called Seneca Oil, is on Oil Creek in this county. As this substance, in the class of bitumens, is nearly allied to the coal series, it may be deemed favorable to the existence of the formation in the substrata.[247]Fragments of carbonized wood are frequently found in the large tracts of marine sand,[248]as well as in some of the mixed alluvions of these counties; and it needs but an examination, as cursory as it has fallen to my lot to make, of this portion of the country, to render it one of high geological interest, and to denote that the coal-measures probably extend into some portions of Western New York.[249]ADDENDA.Animals inclosed in Rock, &c.Toads.—In 1770, a toad was brought to Mr. Grignon inclosed in two hollow shells of stone; but, on examining it nicely, Mr. G. discovered that the cavity bore the impression of a shell-fish, and, of consequence, he concluded it to be apocryphal.In 1771, another instance occurred, and was the subject of a curious memoir read by Mr. Guettard to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. It was thus related by that famous naturalist:—In pulling down a wall, which was known to have existed upwards of a hundred years, a toad was found without the smallest aperture being discoverable by which it could have entered. Upon inspecting the animal, it was apparent that it had been dead but a very little time; and in this state it was presented to the Academy, which induced Mr. Guettard to make repeated inquiries into the subject, the particulars of which will be read with pleasure in the excellent memoir we have just cited.Worms.—Two living worms were found, in Spain, in the middle of a block of marble which a sculptor was carving into a lion, of the natural color, for the royal family. These worms occupied two small cavities to which there was no inlet that could possibly admit the air. They subsisted, probably, on the substance of the marble, as they were the same color. This fact is verified by Captain Ulloa, a famous Spaniard, who accompanied the French academicians in their voyage to Peru to ascertain the figure of the earth. He asserts that he saw these two worms.Adder.—We read in theAffiches de Provence, 17 June, 1772, that an adder was found alive in the centre of a block of marble thirty feet in diameter. It was folded nine times round, in a spiral line. It was incapable of supporting the air, and died a few minutes after. Upon examining the stone, not the smallest trace was to be found by which it could have glided in or received air.Crawfish.—Misson, in hisTravels through Italy, mentions a crawfish that was found alive in the middle of a marble in the environs of Tivoli.Frogs.—M. Peyssonel, king's physician at Guadaloupe, havingordered a pit to be dug in the back part of his house, live frogs were found by the workmen in beds of petrifaction. M. P., suspecting some deceit, descended into the pit, dug the bed of the rock and petrifactions, and drew out himself green frogs, which were alive, and perfectly similar to what we see every day.We are informed by theEuropean Magazine, February 21, 1771, that M. Herissan inclosed three live toads in so many cases of plaster, and shut them up in a deal box, which he also covered with thick plaster. On the 6th of April, 1774, having taken away the plaster, he opened the box, and found the cases whole and two of the toads alive. The one that died was larger than the others, and had been more compressed in its case. A careful examination of this experiment convinced those who had witnessed it, that the animals were so inclosed that they could have no possible communication with the external air, and that they must have existed during this lapse of time without the smallest nourishment.The Academy prevailed upon M. Herissan to repeat the experiment. He inclosed again the two surviving toads, and placed the box in the hands of the Secretary, that the Society might open it whenever they should think proper. But this celebrated naturalist was too strongly interested in the subject to rest satisfied with a single experiment; he made, therefore, the two following:—1. He placed, 15 April, 1771, two live toads in a basin of plaster, which he covered with a glass case that he might observe them frequently. On the 9th of the following month, he presented the apparatus to the Academy. One of the toads was still living; the other had died the preceding night.2. The same day, April 15, he inclosed another toad in a glass bottle, which he buried in sand, that it might have no communication with the external air. This animal, which he presented to the Academy at the same time, was perfectly well, and even croaked whenever the bottle was shook in which he was confined. It is to be lamented that the death of M. Herissan put a stop to these experiments.We beg leave to observe upon this subject, that the power which these animals appear to possess of supporting abstinence for so long a time, may depend upon a very slow digestion, and,perhaps, from the singular nourishment which they derive from themselves. M. Grignon observes that this animal sheds its skin several times in the course of a year, and that it always swallows it. He has known, he says, a large toad shed its skin six times in one winter. In short, those which, from the facts we have related, may be supposed to have existed many centuries without nourishment, have been in a total inaction, in a suspension of life, or a temperature that has admitted of no dissolution; so that it was not necessary to repair any loss, the humidity of the surrounding matter preserving that of the animal, who wanted only the component parts not to be dried up, to preserve it from destruction.The results of modern chemistry and philosophy have proved the number of elementary substances to be far greater than was admitted in the preceding century. And this discovery is progressive, and will probably go on a long time; after which, it is not improbable a new race of chemical and philosophical observers will spring up, who will be able to decompose many substances we now consider elementary, and thus again reduce the number of elements of which all external matter is composed. It would not be wonderful if posterity should reduce the number of elements even as low as the ancients had them. Such a result would throw new light on the mysterious and intricate connection which seems to exist between animal, vegetable, and mineral matter. We should then, perhaps, have less cause to wonder that toads, &c., are capable of supporting life in stone, that birds should exist in solid blocks of wood, &c.But toads are not the only animals which are capable of living for a considerable length of time without nourishment and communication with the external air. The instances of the oysters and dactyles, mentioned at the beginning of this article, may be advanced as a proof of it. But there are other examples.—European Magazine, March, 1791.A beetle, of the species called capricorn, was found in a piece of wood in the hold of a ship at Plymouth. The wood had no external mark of any aperture.—European Magazine.A bug eat itself out of a cherry table at Williamstown, Mass. See an account of this phenomenon, by Professor Dewey, in theLit. and Philos. Repertory.These phenomena remind us of others of a similar nature and equally certain.In a trunk of an elm, about the size of a man's body, three or four feet above the root, and precisely in the centre, was found, in 1719, a live toad, of a moderate size, thin, and which occupied but a very small space. As soon as the wood was cut, it came out and slipped away very alertly. No tree could be more sound. No place could be discovered through which it was possible for the animal to have penetrated, which led the recorder of the fact to suppose that the spawn from which it originated must, from some unaccountable accident, have been in the tree from the very moment of its first vegetation. The toad had lived in the tree without air, and, what is still more surprising, had subsisted on the substance of the wood, and had grown in proportion as the tree had grown. This fact was attested by M. Hebert, Ancient Professor of Philosophy at Caen.In 1731, M. Leigne wrote to the Academy of Sciences at Paris an account of a phenomenon exactly similar to the preceding one, except that the tree was larger, and was an oak instead of an elm, which makes the instance the more surprising. From the size of the oak, M. Leigne judged that the toad must have existed in it without air or any external nourishment, for the space of eighty or a hundred years.We shall cite a third instance, related in a letter the 5th Feb. 1780, written from the neighborhood of Saint Mexent, of which the following is a copy."A few days ago, I ordered an oak tree of a tolerable size to be cut down, and converted into a beam that was wanting for a building I was then constructing. Having separated the head from the trunk, three men were employed in squaring it to the proper size. About four inches were to be cut away on each side. I was present during the transaction. Conceive what was their astonishment when I saw them throw aside their tools, start back from the tree, and fix their eyes on the same point with a kind of amazement and terror. I instantly approached, and looked at that part of the tree which had fixed their attention. My surprise equalled theirs, on seeing a toad, about the size of a large pullet's egg, incrusted, in a manner, in the tree, at the distance of four inches from the diameter and fifteen from the root.It was cut and mangled by the axe, but still moved. I drew it with difficulty from its abode, or rather prison, which it filled so completely that it seemed to have been compressed. I placed it on the grass; it appeared old, thin, languishing, decrepit. We afterwards examined the tree with the nicest care, to discover how it had glided in; but the tree was perfectly whole and sound."—European Magazine.Bat.—A woodman engaged in splitting timber for rail-posts in the woods close by the lake in Haming (a seat of Mr. Pringle's in Selkirkshire), lately discovered, in the centre of a large wild cherry tree, a living bat, of a bright scarlet color, which he foolishly suffered to escape, from fear, being fully persuaded it was (with the characteristic superstition of the inhabitants of that part of the country) a "being not of this world." The tree presented a small cavity in the centre, where the bat was inclosed, but is perfectly sound and solid on each side.—N. Y. Lit. Journ. and Belles-Lettres Repository, taken from theLondon Semi-Monthly Magazine.Skull in Wood.—A tenant of the Rev. J. Cattle, of Warwick, lately presented to him a part of the solid butt of an oak tree, containing within it the skull of some animal (unknown). It was in the part of the tree nine feet above the ground, and was perfectly inclosed in solid timber.—N. Y. Lit. Journ. and Belles-Lettres Repository, fromEuropean Magazine.X.A Memoir on the Geological Position of a Fossil-Tree in the Series of the Secondary Rocks of the Illinois.The spirit of inquiry which has been excited in this country in regard to objects of natural history, while it has enlarged the boundaries of our knowledge of existing species, has directed some of its more valuable researches to those organized forms which have perished and become embalmed in the shape of petrifactions, in the body of solid rocks. A petrified tree of this kind has recently been discovered in the secondary[250]rocksat the source of the Illinois River. Having recently visited this evidence of former changes in the flora of the West, I embrace the occasion, while my recollections are fresh, to give an account of it.The tract of country separating the southern shores of Lake Michigan from the Illinois River, is a plat of table-land composed of compact limestone, based on floetz or horizontal sandstone. This formation embraces the contiguous parts of Illinois, and spreads through Indiana, Ohio, and the Peninsula of Michigan. It is overspread with a deposit of the drift era, covered with a stratum of alluvial soil, presenting a pleasing surface of prairies, forests, and streams. These features may be considered as peculiarly characteristic of the junction of the Rivers Kankakee and Des Plaines, which constitute the Illinois River. This junction is effected about forty miles south of Chicago.The fossil in question occurs about forty rods above the junction of the Kankakee. The sandstone embracing it is deposited in perfectly horizontal layers, of a gray color and close grain. It lies in the bed of the Des Plaines. The action of this stream has laid bare the trunk of the tree to the extent of fifty-one feet six inches. The part at the point where it is overlaid in the western bank is two feet six inches in diameter. Its mineralization is complete. The trunk is simple, straight, scabrous, without branches, and has the usual taper observed in the living specimen. It lies nearly at right angles to the course of the river, pointing towards the southeast, and extends about half the width of the stream. Notwithstanding the continual abrasion to which it is exposed by the volume of passing water, it has suffered little apparent diminution, and is still firmly imbedded in the rock, with the exception of two or three places where portions of it have been disengaged and carried away; but no portion of what remains is elevated more than a few inches above the surface of the rock. It is owing, however, to those partial disturbances that we are enabled to perceive the columnar form of the trunk, its cortical layers, the bark by which it is enveloped, and the peculiar cross fracture, which unite to render the evidence of its ligneous origin so striking and complete. From these characters and appearances, little doubt can remain that it is referable to the species juglans nigra, a tree very common to the forest of theIllinois, as well as to most other parts of the immense region drained by the waters of the Mississippi. The woody structure is most obvious in the outer rind of the trunk, extending to a depth of two or three inches, and these appearances become less evident as we approximate the heart. Indeed, the traces of organic structure in its interior, particularly when viewed in the hand specimen, are almost totally obliterated and exchanged, the vegetable matter being replaced by a mixed substance, analogous, in its external character, to some of the silicated and impure calcareous carbonates of the region. Like those carbonates, it is of a brownish-gray color and compact texture, effervesces slightly in the nitric and muriatic acids, yields a white streak under the knife, and presents solitary points, or facets, of crystals resembling calc spar. All parts of the tree are penetrated by pyrites of iron of a brass yellow color, disseminated through the most solid and stony parts of the interior, filling interstices in the outer rind, or investing its capillary pores. There are also the appearances of rents or seams between the fibres of the wood, caused by its own shrinkage, which are now filled with a carbonate of lime, of a white color and crystallized.From an effect analogous to carbonization, the exterior rind and bark of the tree have acquired a blackish-hue, while the inclosing rock is of a light-gray color, characters which are calculated to arrest attention.There is reason to conclude that the subject under consideration is the joint result, partly of the infiltration of mineral matter into its pores and crevices, prior to inclosure in the rock, and partly to the chemical action educed by the great catastrophe by which it was translated from its parent forest, and suddenly enveloped in a bed of solidifying sand.At the time of my visit (August 13, 1821), the depth of water upon the floetz rocks forming the bed of the River Des Plaines, would vary from one to two feet; but it was at a season when these higher tributaries, and the Illinois itself, are generally at their lowest stage. Like most of the confluent rivers of the Mississippi and their tributaries, the Des Plaines is subject to great fluctuations, and during its periodical floods may be estimated to carry a depth of eight or ten feet of water to the junction of the Kankakee. At those periods, the water is also rendered turbidby the quantity of alluvial matter it carries down, and a search for this organic fossil must prove unsuccessful. But during the prevalence of the summer droughts, in an atmosphere of little humidity, when the waters are drained to the lowest point of depression, and acquire the greatest degree of transparency, it forms a very conspicuous trait in the geology of the stream, and no person, seeking the spot, can fail to be directed to it.The sand-rock containing this petrifaction is found in a horizontal position, differing only with respect to hardness and color. The remains of fossil organized bodies in this stratum are not abundant, or have not been successfully sought. It is probable that future observations will prove that its organic conservata are chiefly referable to the vegetable kingdom. It is certain, that this inference is justified by the facts which are before me, and particularly by the characteristic appearances of the strata in the bed of the River Des Plaines, where the imbedded walnut is the representative of the ancient flora. At a short distance above, where the bed of the Des Plaines approaches nearer the summit level, limestone ensues, and continues from that point northward to the shores of Lake Michigan. In the vicinity of Chicago, where this limestone is quarried for economical purposes, it is characterized by the fossil remains of molluscous species.Lake Erie lies at an elevation of five hundred and sixty-five feet above the Atlantic.[251]There exists a water communication between the head of Lake Michigan, at Chicago, and the River Des Plaines, during the periodical rises of the latter, but its summer level is about seven feet lower, at the termination of the Chicago portage, than the surface of the lake. From this point to its junction with the Kankakee, a computed distance of fifty miles, the bed of the Des Plaines may be considered as having a mean southern depression of ten inches per mile, so that the floetz rocks at its mouth, lying on a level of forty-eight feet eight inches below the surface of Lake Michigan, have an altitude which cannot vary far from five hundred and fifty feet above the Atlantic. There are no mountainsfor a vast distance either east or west of this stream. It is a country of plains, in which are occasionally to be seen alluvial hills of moderate elevation; but the most striking inequalities of surface proceed from the streams which have worn their deep-seated channels through it; and an oceanic overflow capable of covering the country, and producing these strata by deposition, would also submerge all the immense tracts of secondary and alluvial country between the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains, converting into an arm of the sea the great valley of the Mississippi, from the Gulf of Mexico north to the Canadian Lakes. We find in the alluvial soil along the Illinois and Des Plaines blocks of granite, hornblende, and gneiss, of the drift stratum, exhibiting the same appearances of attrition, and of having been transported from their parent beds, which characterize the secondary tablelands along the margin of the great American lakes, the prairies of Illinois, and the western parts of New York.There is nothing, perhaps, in the progress of modern science, which has tended to facilitate geological research so much as the study and investigation of fossil organic remains. They teach, with unerring lights, how extensively the ancient flora and fauna of this continent have been prostrated, leaving their exact impressions, in all their minuteness, in the newly-formed stratifications. That these impressions, fresh and vivid as we find them, should mark the eras of depositions and crystallization of rocks from the suspension of their elements in water, is the observation of Werner, and it is to him we owe the elements of the Neptunian hypothesis. His general recognition of the epochs of the primitive, transition, and secondary rocks, appears too probable not to commend itself to adoption with regard to all strata which can be conceived to be the products of watery menstrua.But it remained for Werner, who was the first to perceive an order in strata, also to point out the important application of fossil organic bodies in elucidating their eras, and the natural order of their superposition.To adopt the words of Dr. Thomas Cooper:—"There appears to be a series of strata, or, as Werner calls them, formations, that may be considered as surrounding the nucleus of the earth. The first formed, or lowest series, always preserve the same situation to each other, except where occasional eruptions, or circumstances not of a general nature, make a varietyin their situations. These strata are not only the deepest, but they are also the highest that are observable in the crust of the earth; forming the tops of the highest mountains. They are characterized by an appearance of crystallization, and by containing no remains of organic matter, animal or vegetable. The strata or formations that in general constitute this first, deepest, highest, and crystallized series, are granite, gneiss, mica-slate, clay-slate, primitive greenstone, granular limestone, serpentine, porphyry, and sienite. These formations are so generally found, and in the same situations as incumbent upon or subtending each other relatively, that they may be considered as universal. Their crystallized appearance shows that their particles have either been dissolved or very finely suspended in water, so that the attraction of crystallization has been free to operate; that this water has been deep, so that the lowermost parts of it have not been much agitated during the crystallization, which would otherwise have been more confused than it is; and, indeed, the oldest formations are the best crystallized. A part of the water covering the nucleus must have been taken up, as water of crystallization, in the primitive formations. When these were deposited, there were no vegetables formed; of course, no animals; nay, even the sea was unpeopled, for there is no trace of any organic remains in these strata. Even the belemnites, the asteriæ, the echini, the entrochi, the most simple forms of oceanic animal life, do not occur until the transition strata appear. Hence the propriety of denominating these formationsprimitive."By processes of nature, besides the consumption of water by the new crystallized masses, to us unknown, the waters appear to have diminished. The highest parts of the primitive formations became the shores to the water superincumbent on their bases and middle regions; the simplest forms of oceanic animals came into existence; the mosses and lichens of high latitude would generally occupy the surface of the primitive strata, gradually decomposed by the alternate action of air and water after many ages. During this period, while the strata were in a state oftransitionfrom the chaotic to the habitable state, other deposits would gradually be made from the waters, now decreased in quantity, and take their place below the summits of the primitive range. Those summits being exposed to the action of the atmosphere,of rains, of frost probably, and to the action also of the waters with their contents still incumbent on the earliest strata, would furnish masses and particles washed away, which would mingle with the deposits of the transition series. This series, therefore, will exhibit appearances of mechanical and chemical intermixture of earths and stones, such as are found in the silicious porphyries, the graywackes, the silicious and argillaceous hornblende rocks, the elder red sandstone, &c. During the period when these transition formations were deposited, there would be no land animals, for there would be no vegetables for them to feed upon. There would be no vegetables unless some few lichens, mosses, or ericas, that would find foothold upon the slight decomposition that, after the lapse of some ages, would take place on the surface of the primitive rocks. The sea only would be peopled, and that but sparingly; for, in that mass of muddy water, none but the lowest and most inferior grades of animal life, and such as do not inhabit deep water, could exist. Hence, we find the transition formations contain in their substances some belemnites, asteriæ, entrochi, echini, &c., but no organized vegetable substance except, very rarely, in the latest rocks of this series, and no remains whatever of terrestrial animals. Indeed, in the high latitudes of the outgoings or summits of the primitive strata, very few vegetables, even at the present day, can live. No vegetation fit for animal life could take place until the transition, and most of the next series ofsecondaryorfloetzformations had subsided. These would occupy lower and lower situations, till a rich soil, from every kind of intermixture of earth mechanically deposited, would afford a proper temperature of region, and an easily decomposed soil, wherein vegetables could grow.
Pig copper, which is the least valuable form in which this metal is carried to market, is now quoted in the Atlantic cities at 19 cents per pound; sheathing, at 27; brazier's, at 32. I have no data at hand to show the amount of these articles consumed in the United States, and for which we are annually transmitting immense sums to enrich foreign States. But those who best appreciate the advantages of commerce will readily supply the estimate. It would be an interesting inquiry to ascertain how much of the sums yearly paid for sheathing copper, bolts, nails, engravers' plates, &c., is contributed to the wealth of the respective foreign States who possess mines of this metal. We can look back to a period in the history of Great Britain, when that power did not contribute one pound of copper to the commerce of Europe. During a period of nine years, closing with the memorable year (in American history) of 1775, the produce of the copper mines of Cornwall was 2,650 tons of fine copper. (SeeNote E.) Since that time, the yearly returns of those mines exhibit a constant increase; and the copper mines of Great Britain are now the most valuable in the world. The amount produced by the mines of Cornwall and Devon, after deducting the charges of smelting, for the single year of 1810, was 969,376 pounds sterling.(SeeNote F.) The clear profits of the Dolgoath mine, one of the richest in Cornwall, for a period of five months, during the year 1805, was £18,000, which is at the rate of £43,200, or $192,000, per annum. Next to Great Britain, the most considerable mines of Europe are those of Russia, Austria, Sweden, and Westphalia, as it was in 1808. Of less importance are those of Denmark, France, Saxony, Prussia, and Spain. The proportion in which the British mines exceed those of the most favored European nation is as 200,000 x 67,000. (SeeNote G.)
There is another consideration connected with this subject which is worthy of remark. Should it be inquired what would be the effects of the purchase of these mines upon the condition of the Indian tribes, the reply is obvious. It would have the most beneficial tendency. They would not only profit by an exchange of their waste lands for goods, implements of husbandry, the stipulated services of blacksmiths, teachers, &c., but the intercourse would have a happy tendency to allay those bitter feelings which, through the instigation of the British authorities in the Canadas, they have manifested, and still continue to feel, in degree, towards the United States. The measures which the President has recently directed to be pursued to assuage these feelings of hostility, and to induce them to cherish proper sentiments of friendship and respect, are already in a train of execution that bids fair for success. Continued exertions, and the necessary and proper means, are all that seem necessary to confirm and complete the effect; and whatever measures have a tendency to increase the intercourse of American citizens with these "remote tribes," and to give them a true conception of the power and justice, and the pacific and benevolent policy of our Government, must favor and hasten such a result.
I have the honor to be, sir,With the highest respect,Your most obedient servant,HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT,U. S. Indian Agent at the Sault Ste. Marie.
HonJohn C. Calhoun,Secretary of War, Washington.
Notes.(B.)
Among the numerous superstitions which the Indian tribes entertain, that respecting mines is not the least remarkable. They are firmly impressed with a belief that any information communicated to the whites, disclosing the position of mines or metallic treasures situated upon their grounds, is displeasing to their manitos, and even to the Great Spirit himself, from whom they profess to derive every good and valuable gift; and that this offence never fails to be visited upon them in the loss of property, in the want of success in their customary pursuits or pastimes, in untimely death, or some other singular disaster or untoward event. This opinion, although certainly not a strange one to be cherished by a barbarous people, is, nevertheless, believed to have had its origin in the transactions of an era which is not only very well defined, but must ever remain conspicuous in the history of the discovery and settlement of America. It is very well known that the precious metals were the principal objects which led the Spanish invaders to penetrate into the interior of Mexico and Peru, and ultimately to devastate and conquer the country, to plunder and destroy its temples, and to tax and enslave its ill-fated inhabitants. It is equally certain that, to escape these scenes of cruelty and oppression, many tribes and fragments of tribes, when further resistance became hopeless, fled towards the north, preferring the enjoyment of liberty and tranquillity upon the chilly borders of the northern lakes, to the pains of servitude in the mild and delightful valleys of Mexico, and the golden plains of the Incas. In this way, many tribes who originally migrated from the north, along the Pacific Ocean, to the Gulf of California, and thence over all New Spain, were returned towards the north over the plains of Texas and the valley of the Mississippi; those tribes nearest the scenes of the greatest atrocities always pressing upon the remoter and less civilized, who, in turn, pressed upon the nations less enlightened than themselves, and finally drove them into the unfrequented forests of the north. Among these terrified tribes, the traditions of the Ojibwais affirm that their ancestors came, and that they originally dwelt in a country destituteof snows. Many tribes who now speak idioms of their language were left upon the way, and have since taken distinctive names. Among these, are the Pottawatamies, the Ottoways, &c. The latter formerly were, as they still remain, the agriculturists. The Miamis and Shawnees, whose languages bear some affinity, preceded them in their flight. The Winnebagoes, speaking a separate and original tongue, came later, and preserve more distinct traditions of their migration. All these tribes carried with them the strong prejudices and fixed hatred excited by the cruelty, rapacity, and cupidity of their European conquerors; and, above all, of that insatiable thirst for gold and silver which led the Spaniards to sack their towns, burn their temples, and torture their people. Cruelty and injustice of so glaring a character must have made upon their minds too deep an impression ever to be forgotten, or completely erased from their traditions. To that memorable epoch we must, therefore, look for the origin of that cautious and distrustful disposition which these tribes have since manifested with regard to the mines and minerals situated upon their lands; and the circumstance seems to offer an abundant excuse, if not a justification, for those prevarications and evasions which present a continual series of embarrassment to every person who seeks through their aid to develop the mineral resources, or describe the natural productions, of their territories. Hence, too, the cause why they are prone to imagine that all mineral or metallic substances obtained or sought upon their lands, are susceptible of being converted ortransmutedinto the precious metals.
(C.)
The followingadditionallocalities of native copper, derived from sources entitled to respect, and accompanied, in some instances, by specimens of the metal, may here be given:—
1. Grand Menou, or Isle Royal, Lake Superior. Captain——, of the schooner——, in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, on Lake Superior, describes this island as affording frequent masses of copper. While becalmed off its shores in the spring of 1822, and, afterwards, in coasting along the island for a distance of one hundred miles, his men frequently went ashore, and never failed to bring back with them lumps of metallic copper, which they found promiscuously scattered among the fragments of rock.These were more abundant in approaching its southwestern extremity, where they unite in representing it to exist in a solid vein. Specimens of limpid quartz, chalcedony, and striped agate, were also brought to me from this island. [J. S. J. J.]
2. On the extremity of the great peninsula, called by the natives Meenaiewong, or Keweena Point, which forms so prominent a feature in the physiognomy of Lake Superior. It occurs in the detached form. [J. H. J. J.]
3. At Point aux Beignes, which is the east cape of the entrance into L'Ance Quewiwenon. A mass from this place was raised from the sandstone rock, which predominates there. [J. Y. B.]
4. At Caug Wudjieu, or the Porcupine Mountains, Lake Superior; in masses, enveloped with a green crust, along the banks of the Carp, or Neemaibee River, which originates in these mountains. [W. M. G. Y. J. J.]
5. On the banks of Lac Courterroile. This lake lies near the source of the River Broule, or Cawesacotai, which enters Lake Superior near La Pointe. It occurs in the alluvial soil, which is a kind of loamy earth, with pebbles intermixed, but of a rich quality, and timbered with beech and maple. It is found mostly in small, flat masses, more or less oxidated. [B. G. J. G. Y.]
6. In a vein on the shore of Lake Superior, between La Riviere de Mort and St. John's, a little to the west of Presque Isle. [J. J.]
7. On the northeast branch of the Ontonagon River. [J. H.]
8. In the precipitous bluffs called Le Portail, and the Pictured Rocks. A green matter oozes from the seams in these rocks, and forms a kind of stalactites, which is apparently a carbonate of copper. [G. Y.]
These localities embrace a range of more than two hundred miles along the south shore of Lake Superior, which proves how intimately this metal and its ores are identified with the rocks and the soil of that region.
(D.)
In all our calculations respecting the position and advantages of these mines, too much stress cannot be laid upon the facilities of the lake navigation. It is believed that a ton of merchandise, or a barrel bulk, can be transported through the lakes at the same rates that are paid in the coasting trade of the United States.Nor is the risk greater. The best data which I can command, induce me to conclude that a quintal of copper can be conveyed from the place of shipment on Lake Superior, to the city of New York, forone dollar. The present price of transportation, for a barrel bulk, from Buffalo to Mackina, may be stated, on the average of freights, at 8s., New York. The mean weight of a barrel bulk, taking flour as the standard, may be safely put down at 200 lbs. gross, being 50 cents per cwt. But it must be recollected that there is no return freight; and, consequently, that this sum covers the expenses not only of the outward and return voyage, but still leaves a profit to the owner. Messrs. Gray and Griswold, sutlers of the 2d regiment, paid 9s.6d., New York, per barrel bulk, from Buffalo to the Sault. This gives a result of 59 cents per cwt. But, if a return cargo could be obtained, one-half of this sum would afford an equal profit on the voyage; and it is believed that the article of bar copper could at all times be conveyed from the Sault to Buffalo for 20 cents per cwt. Being a very convenient species of ballast, it would oftentimes be taken in lieu of stone, and, consequently, cost no greater sum than the price of carrying it on board. But the facilities and cheapness of the lake navigation cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by stating the price of provisions at the post of St. Mary's, every article of which is carried from 300 to 700 miles through the lakes. The following statement of the assistant commissary has been politely furnished at my request:—
Sault Ste. Marie, October, 1822.
Dear Sir:Agreeably to your request, I send you a statement of the actual cost of subsistence stores furnished at this post for the use of troops at present making the military establishment, ordered by the Government to this place.
The prices of the several articles below enumerated are at a small advance on the stores of the settlers outside of the cantonment.
The expenses of subsisting, or rather of maintaining, a garrison at this place will be as small, if not less, per annum, than at any other frontier post in our country. The provisions for the soldier cost as little, I believe, as at any other post, and next year we shall be able to raise all the forage for the use of our beefcattle, and the horses and oxen of the quartermaster's department.
I am, dear sir, yours, &c.,W. BICKER,A. C. S. U. S. A.
Statement of the Cost of United States Subsistence Stores at the Sault de Ste. Marie, 1822.
The total cost of a soldier's ration is 9 cents and 1 mill per diem.
WALTER BICKER,A. C. S. U. S. A.
H. R. Schoolcraft, Esq.,U. S. I. Agent.
(E.)Statement of the Returns of Copper Ores Smelted at the Mines of Cornwall (Eng.) from 1726 to 1775.—[Rees's Cyclopedia.]
(F.)Statement of the Produce of the Mines of Cornwall and Devon (Eng.) for a period of four years, ending with 1811.
(G.)Table of the Annual Quantity of Copper raised from the Earth in Different Countries, in Quintals—the Quintal valued at 100 lbs.
(H.)
I shall here give the synonoma for this tribe of Indians, which appears to have been first recognized by the United States as an independent tribe by Wayne's treaty of 1795,[241]under thename of Chipewa. This name has been retained in all subsequent treaties with them, not, however, without some discrepance in the orthography. These variations are chiefly marked by the introduction of the letterpat the beginning of the second syllable, or the vowelyannexed to the third; producing Chip-pe-wa, Chip-pe-way, and Chip-e-way. The French missionaries and traders, whose policy it was to discard the names of the aboriginal tribes from their conversations, bestowed upon this tribe, at a very early period, thenom de guerreofSaulteurs, orSauteurs, from the Sault or Falls of St. Mary's, which was the ancient seat of this tribe—a name which is still retained by the Canadians, and by many of the American traders. Among the early French writers, they were also sometimes denominatedOutchipouas. There is as little uniformity among travellers and geographers. Pinkerton, Darby, Morse, Carver, Mackenzie, and Herriot, either employ the word according to the orthography of Wayne's treaty, or with the modifications above noticed. The name of Chippewyans, employed by Mackenzie, relates to a tribe residing north and west of the sources of the Mississippi, who speak a language having no affinity, and are a distinct people. Henry, who was well versed in the Chippewa language, also conforms to the popular usage, but observes that the true name, as pronounced by themselves, is Ojibwa.
Having taken pains to ascertain and fix the pronunciation of this word, I have not hesitated to introduce it into my correspondence and official accounts; but I am aware of my great temerity in so doing. Popular prejudices, and several of the authorities above cited, stand opposed to the proposed innovation. The continued use of the word "Chippewa" is also sanctioned by a name entitled to conclusive respect. "I write the word in this way," observes the Executive of Michigan, "because I am apprehensive the orthography is inveterately fixed, and not because I suppose it is correct." Still, there are reasons for changing it. Justice to this unfortunate race requires it. Since the popularapathy to their condition is such that every remembrance of their actual customs, manners, and traditions will probably perish with them, and theirname, ere long, be all that is left, it is at least incumbent upon us to transmitthatto posterity in its true sound—as the fathers and sachems pronounced it. If, then, there is an acknowledged error in this respect, shall we hesitate to correct it?
Rock Formations.—1. Assuming the area of the most eastwardly head of the Onondaga Valley, the Wood Creek, and the Rome Summit, and the valley of the Niagara, with an indefinite extent laterally, to form the limits of this inquiry; it is in coincidence with all known facts to say that it is a secondary region, consisting of the sedimentary and semi-crystalline strata, the lines of which are perfectly horizontal. Colored sandstone, generally red, forms the lowest observed stratum.
Wherever streams have worn deep channels, they either disclose this rock or its adjuncts, the grits, or silicious sinter. It is apparent in the chasm at Niagara Falls, about half a mile belowthe cataract. It is often seen on the surface of the country, or buried slightly beneath the soil. In color, hardness, and other characters, there is a manifest variety. But, considered as a "formation," no doubt can exist of its unity. Its thickness can only be conjectured, as no labor has, so far as we know, penetrated through it.
Judging from observations made in Cattaraugus County, in 1818, the coal measures have been completely swept from this area.
2. Next in point of altitude, is the series of dark, carbonaceous, shelly slate rock. The thickness of this formation, as indicated at Niagara, cannot be less than ninety feet. It is also often a surface-rock in the district, forming portions of the banks of lakes, streams, &c. It is characterized by organic remains of nascent species. Portions of it also disclose rounded masses of pre-existing rocks.
3. Last in the order of superposition, is the secondary limestone formation. It is, most commonly, of a dark, sedimentary aspect. It is not invariably so, but portions of it have a shining, semi-crystalline fracture. Shades of color also vary considerably, but it never, in the scale of colors, exceeds a whitish-gray. Viewed at different localities, the mass is either compact, fetid, shelly, or silicious. Much of it produces good quicklime. It is often rendered "bastard," as the phrase is, by argillaceous and earthy impurities. Organic impressions, and remains of sea shells and coarse corals are frequent. Encrinites give some portions of it the appearance of eyed or dotted secondary marble. The occurrence of a hard variety of hornstone, which is not flint, is apparently confined to the compact, fetid variety. This formation, like the two preceding, may be found to consist of separate strata. Localities, joining, overlaying, substrata, mineral contents, organic species, &c., require observation. The following notices are added.
Geological Changes.—The evidences which are furnished of ancient submersion, which has "changed and overturned" vast portions of the solid land, are neither few nor equivocal. They are seen as well in the rock strata as the alluvial soils. The most elevated hills and the lowest valleys are equally productive of the evidences of extensive changes. The whole aspect of the country seems to attest to the ancient dominion of water. But the moststriking proof of its agency is, perhaps, found in the sea-shells, polypi, and crustacea, which are preserved, in their outlines, in solid strata. Some of these are most vivid in their shapes and ray-like markings, particularly the univalve shells.
A subsequent change, in the surface of the country, is indicated by the marks of attrition and watery action upon the faces of these rocks, in situations greatly elevated above the present water-levels. This action must, consequently, be referred to a period when extensive submersions, in the nature of lakes or semi-seas, existed; for there is no power in present lakes and streams, however swelled and reinforced by rains or melting snows, to reach even a moiety of the elevation of these ancient water-marks. It is to the era of these last submersions that we are encouraged, by evidences, to look, as the disturbing cause which has buried trees, leaves, and bones in alluvial soils.
Action of Water.—In examining some portions of the flat lands of Ontario County, such as the township of Phelps, there are strata of a fine sedimentary soil, such as might be expected to result from the settlings of water not greatly agitated. The bottoms of mill-ponds afford an analogous species of soil. In these level districts, there are also not unfrequently observed fields of bare flat rock, of the limestone species, which is checkered in its surface, conveying the idea of their having formed a flooring to some former lake. An appearance of this kind may be seen a few hundred yards from the meeting-house in Phelps. The rock, in this instance, is a carbonate of lime, and affords organic remains.
The Oak Openings, in Erie County, are a kind of natural meadows or prairies. Many suppose them to have been ancient clearings; but of this the Indians have no tradition, and the evidences of such a settlement are by no means satisfactory. In many places, on these extensive openings, there are naked and barren layers of calcareous rock, whose surface exhibits appearances analogous to those in Ontario. The limestone is, however, of a darker color, and contains numerous imbedded nodules of hornstone, and it emits a fetid odor on breaking.
In crossing the elevated calcareous highlands, between Danville and Arkport, in Steuben County, we perceive in the bluff rocks which bound the valley of the Conestoga River, at an elevation ofperhaps two hundred feet above its bed, horizontal water-marks, deeply impressed upon the face of the rocks, as if the waters had formerly stood at that level; and it is impossible to resist the conviction, in travelling over this rugged district of country, that it has not been totally submerged by waters, which have been suddenly drawn off, but by gradual or periodical exhaustions, standing for many ages at different levels.
Slate Rocks.—These were, not inaptly, denominated "brittle slate," by Dr. Mitchell, in 1809. Brittleness is their pervading character; and it is owing to this quality, in a formation of great thickness, that the action of the water at Niagara Falls is of so very striking a character. There is no portion of the Niagara slate solid enough to be used for building stone. It is uniformly shelly, and exhibits, even in hand specimens, its reproduced character.[243]Those portions of the general formation which are solid constitute silicious slate. A locality of this variety may be seen at the Halfway House, eight miles east of Canandaigua.
Seneca Lake.—This clear and picturesque lake has its bed in the secondary formations, and may be referred to as exhibiting localities of them. Its upper parts afford the compact limestone in quadrangular blocks. Large portions of its margin consist of the brittle carbonaceous slate. The shores, from the vicinity of Rose's Farm to Appletown, are little else but a continuous bank of the slate. On the opposite coast, it is also visible at various localities below the Crooked Lake inlet. Cashong Creek may be particularly referred to. A short ascent of its valley brings the spectator into a scene where the walled masses of slaty rock assume a character of grandeur. Among the recent portions which have been thrown into the valley, may be seen masses having large species of the stem-like organic remains, which indicate its newness as a formation. Here are also disclosed orbicular masses, and pebbles of other rocks, imbedded in the slate. These prove it to be—what its texture would, in other places, indicate—a secondary slate.
The order of position on the banks of this lake is the same as at Niagara; but the sandstone is not apparent above the water line. Its existence, in the bed of the lake, may be satisfactorilyinferred, from the masses of yellow coarse sand which are driven up at the foot of the lake, and particularly around its outlet. When the winds prevail, the water is driven violently against this part of the shore. As it is an alluvial flat, they soon surmount the stated margin, and produce a partial inundation. On their recession, wreathes of sand remain.
Diluvial Elevations.—Bounding the alluvial plain of the Seneca outlet westward, there is a series of remarkable wave-like ridges, whose direction is parallel to that of the lake. On the declivity-stop of the first of these ridges, stands the village of Geneva, the buildings of which are thus displayed in an amphitheatric manner above the clear expanse of the lake. The substratum of these ridges is an argillaceous, compact soil of the eldest formation. Some parts of it are a stiff clay, and yield septaria; but there is no considerable portion of it, which has been examined, wholly destitute of primitive boulders and pebbles. Little doubt can remain but that it is the result of the broken-down slaty rock mixed with the extraneous and far-fetched primitive masses. They are conclusive of its diluvial character. I have attentively examined this formation, in the section of it exposed on the shores of the lake between the village of Geneva and Two-mile Point. All its solid, stony contents are piled along the margin of the lake, the soil being completely washed away. Granite, quartz, and trap pebble-stones and boulders, are here promiscuously strewn with recent debris. Over the argillaceous deposit is spread a mantle of newer soil, of unequal depth and character, which forms, exclusively, the theatre of farming and horticultural labors.
White Springs.—On the declivity of one of these parallel ridges, at the distance of two miles from the lake, is found an extensive bed of white marl. This deposit, which is on the estate of the late Judge Nicholas, covers many acres, and yields so copious a spring of pure water that it is sufficient, at the distance of about three hundred yards from its issue, to turn a gristmill. There are to be found in this bed of marl several species of helix and voluta. The marl is generally covered with an alluvial deposit of two feet in depth. The depth of the marl itself is unexplored. Is not this marl the result of decomposed sea shells?
Beds of Quartzose Sand.—In certain parts of the Seneca Valley are found limited deposits of a white quartzose sand, in a state of comparative purity. This substance is capable of being readily vitrified by the addition of alkaline fluxes, and is thus converted into glass. Its existence, as a local deposit, beneath separate strata of alluvial soil, supporting a growth of trees and shrubs, is such as to render it probable that the present stream, in its exhausted state, could have had no agency in producing these deposits. If we are compelled to look to a former condition of the waters passing off through this valley, as affording the requisite power of deposit, we are then carried back to an era in the geology of the country which we must refer to, to account for by far the greater number of changes in all its recent soils. Indeed, wherever we examine these soils, out of the range comprehended between high- and low-water mark, on any existing lake or stream, there will be found occasion to resort to the agency of more general and anterior submersions. A few localities may be appealed to.
Fossil Wood.—In digging a well in the Genesee Valley, one mile east of the river (at Hosmer's), part of the trunk of a tree, of mature growth, was found at the depth of forty-one feet below the surface. The soil was a loose sand mixed with gravel. The position is more elevated than the flats, so called.
Antlers.—A large pair of elk's horns were discovered in an excavation made for the foundation of a mill at Clyde, in Seneca County. They were imbedded in alluvial soil, ten feet below the surface. This surface had been cleared of elm and other forest trees of mature growth. Near the same place, logs of wood were found at the depth of fourteen feet. These discoveries were made in the valley of Clyde River, which is formed by the junction of the Canandaigua Outlet with Mud Creek.
Frogs Enclosed in the Geological Column.—At Carthage, on the Genesee, twelve or fifteen frogs were found in excavating a layer of compact clay marl, about nine feet below the surface. The position is several hundred feet above the bed of the Genesee River, to which elevation no one, after viewing the spot, will deem it probable its waters could have reached, this side of the diluvian era.
A frog was dug out of the solid rock, at Lockport, NiagaraCounty, by the workmen engaged in excavating the canal. It was enveloped by the limestone which abounds in cavities filled with crystals of strontian and dog-tooth spar. It came to life for a few moments, and then expired. There was no aperture by which it could possibly communicate with the atmospheric air. The cavity was only large enough to retain it, without allowing room for motion.
The inclosure of animals of the inferior classes in the sedimentary strata, and even in the most solid substance of rock, is a fact which has been frequently noticed, without, however, any very satisfactory theory having been given of the process, at least to common apprehension.VideAddenda, for some further notices of this kind.
Fossil Vegetation.—A well was dug in the lower part of the village of Geneva, in 1820, which disclosed, at the depth of thirteen feet, the branches and buds of a cedar-tree. They were found lying across the excavation, and in the sides of it; and were in excellent preservation. No one could conjecture in what age they had been buried. But this discovery would seem to establish the position that the catastrophe occurredin the spring.
Madrepore.—A madrepore, measuring eight inches in diameter, was found in the upland soil of Caledonia, Genesee County. Smaller specimens of the same species occur in that township. Madrepores of a large size have also been found imbedded in the soil, or lying on the surface, in various places in Cattaraugus and Alleghany counties. They are locally denominated petrified wasps' nests. The lands containing these loose fossil remains are contiguous to, or based on, secondary rocks at considerable elevations.
Boulders and Primitive Gravel.—But the most abundant evidences of diluvial action are furnished by the masses of foreign crystalline rocks which are scattered, in blocks of various sizes, on the surface of the soil, or imbedded at all depths within it. Primitive rocks are foreign to the district, and these masses could not, therefore, have resulted from local disintegration. They must have been transported from a distance. They required not only an adequate cause for their removal, but one commensurate with the effects. Such a cause Cuvier supposes, in discussing the general question, may have existed in eruptions, or in theaction of oceanic masses of water, operating at an ancient period.
The latter opinion appears to be generally adopted. Dr. Mitchell, in reference to northwestern boulders, attributes their distribution over secondary regions to the draining of interior seas or lakes. Mr. Hayden, in hisGeological Essays, refers them to the action of oceanic currents setting "from north and east to south and west."
Subordinate and Equivalent Strata.—These constitute the most intricate subjects of reference. They are either adjuncts or residuary deposits of leading formations. But their order, as accompanying series, must sometimes be sought for by a previous determination of the formations themselves. Could we certainly know, for instance, that the sandstone of Western New York is or is not the true coal-sandstone, or the limestone is or is not the carboniferous limestone, it would at once direct to positive eras, and serve to impart confidence in the prediction of unknown deposits of an important character. But, in order to fix the formations, it is often the safest mode of procedure to employ the subordinate and local deposits as evidences of the character of the formations embracing them.
Gypsum.—A stratum of gypsum of the plaster of Paris kind—that is, consisting of an admixture of the carbonate with the sulphate of lime—occurs on the banks of the Canandaigua outlet. It has been chiefly explored in the township of Phelps, Ontario. In visiting the principal bed (1820), I found the following order of deposits composing the banks of the outlet:—
1. Alluvial soil of a dark, arenaceous, and mellow character, having small stones of the primitive kind sparingly interspersed, two and a half to three feet. Cultivated in improved farms.
2. Shelly limestone, of an earthy, dull-gray color and loose texture, in layers, three feet.
3. Limestone of a more firm character, but still shelly, or rather slaty, fissile, and easily quarried, six feet. This stratum contains iron pyrites in a decomposed state. Also, nodular or kidney-shaped masses of what the quarrymen callplaster-eggs—apparently snowy gypsum.
4. Plaster of Paris, ten feet. This stratum yields granular, earthy, fibrous, and foliated gypsum. It is the first two varietieswhich are quarried. In some places, the mass is firm enough to admit of blasting. In others, it is loose and veiny, and is readily broken up with iron bars and sledges. Portions of it appear to consist of a shelly limestone identical with No. 2. They are rejected in quarrying.
5. Limestone similar to No. 3, four feet.
At this depth it is covered by the waters of the outlet. How deep it extends is uncertain. The rapids at the village of Vienna are caused by shelving strata of this limestone.
There is a suite character in these strata which appears to constitute them a single deposit. The plaster-bed at Canasaraga exists in a ledge more elevated in reference to the local stream, and presents a broader section of the limestone. The shades of difference which are observable in its color and texture, do not appear to indicate a difference of geological era. Nor do appearances denote, for the calcareous formation which embraces these beds, much antiquity in the scale of secondary rocks.
Saliferous Red Clay-marl.—Examinations, at various points, render it a probable supposition that the red clay-marl of western New York is the equivalent for the new red sandstone, in positions where the latter is—as it often is—wanting. It is extensively deposited in the upland soils, in the range of the salt rock and gypsum counties, from the summit grounds of Oneida County west. It may be seen in various stages of the decomposition. I have more attentively examined it on the upper parts of the Scanado[244]and Oneida creeks. Large areas of it exist in Westmoreland, Verona, and Vernon townships, and bordering the valley grounds of the Oneida reservation, and the northerly portions of Sullivan County. The existence of salt water might, apparently, be searched for with as much probability of success, in the district thus indicated, as at more westerly points.
Coal-Formation.—With a strong predisposition to regard our leading sandstone and limestone surface-formations as members of the "independent" or true coal-formation, inquiry has led me to relinquish the impression that they will, to any great degree, be found to yield this mineral. If the sandstone is—as facts indicate it to be—the new red or saliferous sandstone, it may be expectedto yield thin seams of coal, in distant places, but no deposit of this mineral which will reward exploration in this or its super-incumbent series of rocks, the slates, limestones, &c. It will result, that the coal-measures, properly so denominated, are a prior deposit in the order of series; and, should they hereafter be found, such a discovery must take place above the range of the sandstone, which is the basis rock at Niagara and Genesee Falls.
Having premised the character of the sandstone, all the series occupying a position above it must derive their character, as secondary deposits, from this. The limestone cannot, therefore, be a part of the carboniferous or "medial." The slates, as shown at Cashong, are fragmentary, and rather nearer slaty grauwacks. The arenaceous and calcareous upper deposits assume nearly the position of the oolitic series, and, in fact, ought, in some localities, to be regarded as equivalents.
Western Coal-Mines.—Much of the data employed in these inquiries is the result of previous examinations of the great coal deposits in the Ohio Valley, and other parts of the western country. Here we have the coal-sandstone and the slate clay, with slate, &c., alternating with the coal-measures. Such is the order of deposits at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela, where the formation is well developed, and where there exists, too, in the elevated valley hills, several repetitions of the series. The zechstone, or compact limestone, which is a pervading rock in the Mississippi Valley, occupies a position next above the great Mississippi sandstone.[245]It may always be distinguished from the shelly, entrochal limestone of the Genesee,[246]by the absence of gypsum and of the fetid odor emitted on fracture.
Alleghany Valley.—A question of interest, in connection with the extent of the Ohio Valley coal-formation, arises from the attempt to fix the point to which this formation ascends the Alleghany Valley—being the direct avenue into Western New York. I have examined this valley in its entire length between Pittsburg and Olean, in Cattaraugus County, and have not been able to observe that there are any evidences of its terminationbelow the latter point. The general order and parallelism of strata remain the same. The coal stratum is apparently present. The qualities of the coal at Armstrong, and at various points below French Creek—the first primary fork of the river—are not distinguishable from the products of the Pittsburg galleries. Less search has been made above that point, but wherever the hills have been penetrated, they have—as at Brokenstraw—produced the bituminous coal. Above the Conawango Valley, which brings in the redundant waters of Chatauque Lake, the Alleghany discloses frequent rapids. The effect of parallelism upon the strata is to sink the coal-measures deeper as they ascend the Alleghany; and this cause may, in connection with the unexplored character of the country, be referred to in accounting for the absence of coal along this part of the line. The reappearance of traces of this mineral at Potato Creek, forty miles above Olean, is a proof, however, that the coal-formation extends to that point. This locality is a few miles within the limits of Pennsylvania. It occurs in a valley.
Coal in Western New York.—The coal-bed above Olean is south of the summit of the Genesee, and not remote from its primary source. The expectation may be indulged that the western coal-formation embraces portions of Cattaraugus and Alleghany or Steuben counties. The noted spring of naphtha, called Seneca Oil, is on Oil Creek in this county. As this substance, in the class of bitumens, is nearly allied to the coal series, it may be deemed favorable to the existence of the formation in the substrata.[247]Fragments of carbonized wood are frequently found in the large tracts of marine sand,[248]as well as in some of the mixed alluvions of these counties; and it needs but an examination, as cursory as it has fallen to my lot to make, of this portion of the country, to render it one of high geological interest, and to denote that the coal-measures probably extend into some portions of Western New York.[249]
ADDENDA.Animals inclosed in Rock, &c.
Toads.—In 1770, a toad was brought to Mr. Grignon inclosed in two hollow shells of stone; but, on examining it nicely, Mr. G. discovered that the cavity bore the impression of a shell-fish, and, of consequence, he concluded it to be apocryphal.
In 1771, another instance occurred, and was the subject of a curious memoir read by Mr. Guettard to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. It was thus related by that famous naturalist:—
In pulling down a wall, which was known to have existed upwards of a hundred years, a toad was found without the smallest aperture being discoverable by which it could have entered. Upon inspecting the animal, it was apparent that it had been dead but a very little time; and in this state it was presented to the Academy, which induced Mr. Guettard to make repeated inquiries into the subject, the particulars of which will be read with pleasure in the excellent memoir we have just cited.
Worms.—Two living worms were found, in Spain, in the middle of a block of marble which a sculptor was carving into a lion, of the natural color, for the royal family. These worms occupied two small cavities to which there was no inlet that could possibly admit the air. They subsisted, probably, on the substance of the marble, as they were the same color. This fact is verified by Captain Ulloa, a famous Spaniard, who accompanied the French academicians in their voyage to Peru to ascertain the figure of the earth. He asserts that he saw these two worms.
Adder.—We read in theAffiches de Provence, 17 June, 1772, that an adder was found alive in the centre of a block of marble thirty feet in diameter. It was folded nine times round, in a spiral line. It was incapable of supporting the air, and died a few minutes after. Upon examining the stone, not the smallest trace was to be found by which it could have glided in or received air.
Crawfish.—Misson, in hisTravels through Italy, mentions a crawfish that was found alive in the middle of a marble in the environs of Tivoli.
Frogs.—M. Peyssonel, king's physician at Guadaloupe, havingordered a pit to be dug in the back part of his house, live frogs were found by the workmen in beds of petrifaction. M. P., suspecting some deceit, descended into the pit, dug the bed of the rock and petrifactions, and drew out himself green frogs, which were alive, and perfectly similar to what we see every day.
We are informed by theEuropean Magazine, February 21, 1771, that M. Herissan inclosed three live toads in so many cases of plaster, and shut them up in a deal box, which he also covered with thick plaster. On the 6th of April, 1774, having taken away the plaster, he opened the box, and found the cases whole and two of the toads alive. The one that died was larger than the others, and had been more compressed in its case. A careful examination of this experiment convinced those who had witnessed it, that the animals were so inclosed that they could have no possible communication with the external air, and that they must have existed during this lapse of time without the smallest nourishment.
The Academy prevailed upon M. Herissan to repeat the experiment. He inclosed again the two surviving toads, and placed the box in the hands of the Secretary, that the Society might open it whenever they should think proper. But this celebrated naturalist was too strongly interested in the subject to rest satisfied with a single experiment; he made, therefore, the two following:—
1. He placed, 15 April, 1771, two live toads in a basin of plaster, which he covered with a glass case that he might observe them frequently. On the 9th of the following month, he presented the apparatus to the Academy. One of the toads was still living; the other had died the preceding night.
2. The same day, April 15, he inclosed another toad in a glass bottle, which he buried in sand, that it might have no communication with the external air. This animal, which he presented to the Academy at the same time, was perfectly well, and even croaked whenever the bottle was shook in which he was confined. It is to be lamented that the death of M. Herissan put a stop to these experiments.
We beg leave to observe upon this subject, that the power which these animals appear to possess of supporting abstinence for so long a time, may depend upon a very slow digestion, and,perhaps, from the singular nourishment which they derive from themselves. M. Grignon observes that this animal sheds its skin several times in the course of a year, and that it always swallows it. He has known, he says, a large toad shed its skin six times in one winter. In short, those which, from the facts we have related, may be supposed to have existed many centuries without nourishment, have been in a total inaction, in a suspension of life, or a temperature that has admitted of no dissolution; so that it was not necessary to repair any loss, the humidity of the surrounding matter preserving that of the animal, who wanted only the component parts not to be dried up, to preserve it from destruction.
The results of modern chemistry and philosophy have proved the number of elementary substances to be far greater than was admitted in the preceding century. And this discovery is progressive, and will probably go on a long time; after which, it is not improbable a new race of chemical and philosophical observers will spring up, who will be able to decompose many substances we now consider elementary, and thus again reduce the number of elements of which all external matter is composed. It would not be wonderful if posterity should reduce the number of elements even as low as the ancients had them. Such a result would throw new light on the mysterious and intricate connection which seems to exist between animal, vegetable, and mineral matter. We should then, perhaps, have less cause to wonder that toads, &c., are capable of supporting life in stone, that birds should exist in solid blocks of wood, &c.
But toads are not the only animals which are capable of living for a considerable length of time without nourishment and communication with the external air. The instances of the oysters and dactyles, mentioned at the beginning of this article, may be advanced as a proof of it. But there are other examples.—European Magazine, March, 1791.
A beetle, of the species called capricorn, was found in a piece of wood in the hold of a ship at Plymouth. The wood had no external mark of any aperture.—European Magazine.
A bug eat itself out of a cherry table at Williamstown, Mass. See an account of this phenomenon, by Professor Dewey, in theLit. and Philos. Repertory.
These phenomena remind us of others of a similar nature and equally certain.
In a trunk of an elm, about the size of a man's body, three or four feet above the root, and precisely in the centre, was found, in 1719, a live toad, of a moderate size, thin, and which occupied but a very small space. As soon as the wood was cut, it came out and slipped away very alertly. No tree could be more sound. No place could be discovered through which it was possible for the animal to have penetrated, which led the recorder of the fact to suppose that the spawn from which it originated must, from some unaccountable accident, have been in the tree from the very moment of its first vegetation. The toad had lived in the tree without air, and, what is still more surprising, had subsisted on the substance of the wood, and had grown in proportion as the tree had grown. This fact was attested by M. Hebert, Ancient Professor of Philosophy at Caen.
In 1731, M. Leigne wrote to the Academy of Sciences at Paris an account of a phenomenon exactly similar to the preceding one, except that the tree was larger, and was an oak instead of an elm, which makes the instance the more surprising. From the size of the oak, M. Leigne judged that the toad must have existed in it without air or any external nourishment, for the space of eighty or a hundred years.
We shall cite a third instance, related in a letter the 5th Feb. 1780, written from the neighborhood of Saint Mexent, of which the following is a copy.
"A few days ago, I ordered an oak tree of a tolerable size to be cut down, and converted into a beam that was wanting for a building I was then constructing. Having separated the head from the trunk, three men were employed in squaring it to the proper size. About four inches were to be cut away on each side. I was present during the transaction. Conceive what was their astonishment when I saw them throw aside their tools, start back from the tree, and fix their eyes on the same point with a kind of amazement and terror. I instantly approached, and looked at that part of the tree which had fixed their attention. My surprise equalled theirs, on seeing a toad, about the size of a large pullet's egg, incrusted, in a manner, in the tree, at the distance of four inches from the diameter and fifteen from the root.It was cut and mangled by the axe, but still moved. I drew it with difficulty from its abode, or rather prison, which it filled so completely that it seemed to have been compressed. I placed it on the grass; it appeared old, thin, languishing, decrepit. We afterwards examined the tree with the nicest care, to discover how it had glided in; but the tree was perfectly whole and sound."—European Magazine.
Bat.—A woodman engaged in splitting timber for rail-posts in the woods close by the lake in Haming (a seat of Mr. Pringle's in Selkirkshire), lately discovered, in the centre of a large wild cherry tree, a living bat, of a bright scarlet color, which he foolishly suffered to escape, from fear, being fully persuaded it was (with the characteristic superstition of the inhabitants of that part of the country) a "being not of this world." The tree presented a small cavity in the centre, where the bat was inclosed, but is perfectly sound and solid on each side.—N. Y. Lit. Journ. and Belles-Lettres Repository, taken from theLondon Semi-Monthly Magazine.
Skull in Wood.—A tenant of the Rev. J. Cattle, of Warwick, lately presented to him a part of the solid butt of an oak tree, containing within it the skull of some animal (unknown). It was in the part of the tree nine feet above the ground, and was perfectly inclosed in solid timber.—N. Y. Lit. Journ. and Belles-Lettres Repository, fromEuropean Magazine.
The spirit of inquiry which has been excited in this country in regard to objects of natural history, while it has enlarged the boundaries of our knowledge of existing species, has directed some of its more valuable researches to those organized forms which have perished and become embalmed in the shape of petrifactions, in the body of solid rocks. A petrified tree of this kind has recently been discovered in the secondary[250]rocksat the source of the Illinois River. Having recently visited this evidence of former changes in the flora of the West, I embrace the occasion, while my recollections are fresh, to give an account of it.
The tract of country separating the southern shores of Lake Michigan from the Illinois River, is a plat of table-land composed of compact limestone, based on floetz or horizontal sandstone. This formation embraces the contiguous parts of Illinois, and spreads through Indiana, Ohio, and the Peninsula of Michigan. It is overspread with a deposit of the drift era, covered with a stratum of alluvial soil, presenting a pleasing surface of prairies, forests, and streams. These features may be considered as peculiarly characteristic of the junction of the Rivers Kankakee and Des Plaines, which constitute the Illinois River. This junction is effected about forty miles south of Chicago.
The fossil in question occurs about forty rods above the junction of the Kankakee. The sandstone embracing it is deposited in perfectly horizontal layers, of a gray color and close grain. It lies in the bed of the Des Plaines. The action of this stream has laid bare the trunk of the tree to the extent of fifty-one feet six inches. The part at the point where it is overlaid in the western bank is two feet six inches in diameter. Its mineralization is complete. The trunk is simple, straight, scabrous, without branches, and has the usual taper observed in the living specimen. It lies nearly at right angles to the course of the river, pointing towards the southeast, and extends about half the width of the stream. Notwithstanding the continual abrasion to which it is exposed by the volume of passing water, it has suffered little apparent diminution, and is still firmly imbedded in the rock, with the exception of two or three places where portions of it have been disengaged and carried away; but no portion of what remains is elevated more than a few inches above the surface of the rock. It is owing, however, to those partial disturbances that we are enabled to perceive the columnar form of the trunk, its cortical layers, the bark by which it is enveloped, and the peculiar cross fracture, which unite to render the evidence of its ligneous origin so striking and complete. From these characters and appearances, little doubt can remain that it is referable to the species juglans nigra, a tree very common to the forest of theIllinois, as well as to most other parts of the immense region drained by the waters of the Mississippi. The woody structure is most obvious in the outer rind of the trunk, extending to a depth of two or three inches, and these appearances become less evident as we approximate the heart. Indeed, the traces of organic structure in its interior, particularly when viewed in the hand specimen, are almost totally obliterated and exchanged, the vegetable matter being replaced by a mixed substance, analogous, in its external character, to some of the silicated and impure calcareous carbonates of the region. Like those carbonates, it is of a brownish-gray color and compact texture, effervesces slightly in the nitric and muriatic acids, yields a white streak under the knife, and presents solitary points, or facets, of crystals resembling calc spar. All parts of the tree are penetrated by pyrites of iron of a brass yellow color, disseminated through the most solid and stony parts of the interior, filling interstices in the outer rind, or investing its capillary pores. There are also the appearances of rents or seams between the fibres of the wood, caused by its own shrinkage, which are now filled with a carbonate of lime, of a white color and crystallized.
From an effect analogous to carbonization, the exterior rind and bark of the tree have acquired a blackish-hue, while the inclosing rock is of a light-gray color, characters which are calculated to arrest attention.
There is reason to conclude that the subject under consideration is the joint result, partly of the infiltration of mineral matter into its pores and crevices, prior to inclosure in the rock, and partly to the chemical action educed by the great catastrophe by which it was translated from its parent forest, and suddenly enveloped in a bed of solidifying sand.
At the time of my visit (August 13, 1821), the depth of water upon the floetz rocks forming the bed of the River Des Plaines, would vary from one to two feet; but it was at a season when these higher tributaries, and the Illinois itself, are generally at their lowest stage. Like most of the confluent rivers of the Mississippi and their tributaries, the Des Plaines is subject to great fluctuations, and during its periodical floods may be estimated to carry a depth of eight or ten feet of water to the junction of the Kankakee. At those periods, the water is also rendered turbidby the quantity of alluvial matter it carries down, and a search for this organic fossil must prove unsuccessful. But during the prevalence of the summer droughts, in an atmosphere of little humidity, when the waters are drained to the lowest point of depression, and acquire the greatest degree of transparency, it forms a very conspicuous trait in the geology of the stream, and no person, seeking the spot, can fail to be directed to it.
The sand-rock containing this petrifaction is found in a horizontal position, differing only with respect to hardness and color. The remains of fossil organized bodies in this stratum are not abundant, or have not been successfully sought. It is probable that future observations will prove that its organic conservata are chiefly referable to the vegetable kingdom. It is certain, that this inference is justified by the facts which are before me, and particularly by the characteristic appearances of the strata in the bed of the River Des Plaines, where the imbedded walnut is the representative of the ancient flora. At a short distance above, where the bed of the Des Plaines approaches nearer the summit level, limestone ensues, and continues from that point northward to the shores of Lake Michigan. In the vicinity of Chicago, where this limestone is quarried for economical purposes, it is characterized by the fossil remains of molluscous species.
Lake Erie lies at an elevation of five hundred and sixty-five feet above the Atlantic.[251]
There exists a water communication between the head of Lake Michigan, at Chicago, and the River Des Plaines, during the periodical rises of the latter, but its summer level is about seven feet lower, at the termination of the Chicago portage, than the surface of the lake. From this point to its junction with the Kankakee, a computed distance of fifty miles, the bed of the Des Plaines may be considered as having a mean southern depression of ten inches per mile, so that the floetz rocks at its mouth, lying on a level of forty-eight feet eight inches below the surface of Lake Michigan, have an altitude which cannot vary far from five hundred and fifty feet above the Atlantic. There are no mountainsfor a vast distance either east or west of this stream. It is a country of plains, in which are occasionally to be seen alluvial hills of moderate elevation; but the most striking inequalities of surface proceed from the streams which have worn their deep-seated channels through it; and an oceanic overflow capable of covering the country, and producing these strata by deposition, would also submerge all the immense tracts of secondary and alluvial country between the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains, converting into an arm of the sea the great valley of the Mississippi, from the Gulf of Mexico north to the Canadian Lakes. We find in the alluvial soil along the Illinois and Des Plaines blocks of granite, hornblende, and gneiss, of the drift stratum, exhibiting the same appearances of attrition, and of having been transported from their parent beds, which characterize the secondary tablelands along the margin of the great American lakes, the prairies of Illinois, and the western parts of New York.
There is nothing, perhaps, in the progress of modern science, which has tended to facilitate geological research so much as the study and investigation of fossil organic remains. They teach, with unerring lights, how extensively the ancient flora and fauna of this continent have been prostrated, leaving their exact impressions, in all their minuteness, in the newly-formed stratifications. That these impressions, fresh and vivid as we find them, should mark the eras of depositions and crystallization of rocks from the suspension of their elements in water, is the observation of Werner, and it is to him we owe the elements of the Neptunian hypothesis. His general recognition of the epochs of the primitive, transition, and secondary rocks, appears too probable not to commend itself to adoption with regard to all strata which can be conceived to be the products of watery menstrua.
But it remained for Werner, who was the first to perceive an order in strata, also to point out the important application of fossil organic bodies in elucidating their eras, and the natural order of their superposition.
To adopt the words of Dr. Thomas Cooper:—
"There appears to be a series of strata, or, as Werner calls them, formations, that may be considered as surrounding the nucleus of the earth. The first formed, or lowest series, always preserve the same situation to each other, except where occasional eruptions, or circumstances not of a general nature, make a varietyin their situations. These strata are not only the deepest, but they are also the highest that are observable in the crust of the earth; forming the tops of the highest mountains. They are characterized by an appearance of crystallization, and by containing no remains of organic matter, animal or vegetable. The strata or formations that in general constitute this first, deepest, highest, and crystallized series, are granite, gneiss, mica-slate, clay-slate, primitive greenstone, granular limestone, serpentine, porphyry, and sienite. These formations are so generally found, and in the same situations as incumbent upon or subtending each other relatively, that they may be considered as universal. Their crystallized appearance shows that their particles have either been dissolved or very finely suspended in water, so that the attraction of crystallization has been free to operate; that this water has been deep, so that the lowermost parts of it have not been much agitated during the crystallization, which would otherwise have been more confused than it is; and, indeed, the oldest formations are the best crystallized. A part of the water covering the nucleus must have been taken up, as water of crystallization, in the primitive formations. When these were deposited, there were no vegetables formed; of course, no animals; nay, even the sea was unpeopled, for there is no trace of any organic remains in these strata. Even the belemnites, the asteriæ, the echini, the entrochi, the most simple forms of oceanic animal life, do not occur until the transition strata appear. Hence the propriety of denominating these formationsprimitive.
"By processes of nature, besides the consumption of water by the new crystallized masses, to us unknown, the waters appear to have diminished. The highest parts of the primitive formations became the shores to the water superincumbent on their bases and middle regions; the simplest forms of oceanic animals came into existence; the mosses and lichens of high latitude would generally occupy the surface of the primitive strata, gradually decomposed by the alternate action of air and water after many ages. During this period, while the strata were in a state oftransitionfrom the chaotic to the habitable state, other deposits would gradually be made from the waters, now decreased in quantity, and take their place below the summits of the primitive range. Those summits being exposed to the action of the atmosphere,of rains, of frost probably, and to the action also of the waters with their contents still incumbent on the earliest strata, would furnish masses and particles washed away, which would mingle with the deposits of the transition series. This series, therefore, will exhibit appearances of mechanical and chemical intermixture of earths and stones, such as are found in the silicious porphyries, the graywackes, the silicious and argillaceous hornblende rocks, the elder red sandstone, &c. During the period when these transition formations were deposited, there would be no land animals, for there would be no vegetables for them to feed upon. There would be no vegetables unless some few lichens, mosses, or ericas, that would find foothold upon the slight decomposition that, after the lapse of some ages, would take place on the surface of the primitive rocks. The sea only would be peopled, and that but sparingly; for, in that mass of muddy water, none but the lowest and most inferior grades of animal life, and such as do not inhabit deep water, could exist. Hence, we find the transition formations contain in their substances some belemnites, asteriæ, entrochi, echini, &c., but no organized vegetable substance except, very rarely, in the latest rocks of this series, and no remains whatever of terrestrial animals. Indeed, in the high latitudes of the outgoings or summits of the primitive strata, very few vegetables, even at the present day, can live. No vegetation fit for animal life could take place until the transition, and most of the next series ofsecondaryorfloetzformations had subsided. These would occupy lower and lower situations, till a rich soil, from every kind of intermixture of earth mechanically deposited, would afford a proper temperature of region, and an easily decomposed soil, wherein vegetables could grow.