GEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SURVEYS. 101 



acre, " to encourage the building of ironworks and salt works, in 

 Pulaski and Wayne Counties, which was, probably, the first appro- 

 priation made by the State toward developing the mineral resources. 



Two years after Kentucky was admitted as a State in the Union, 

 in 1790, an iron furnace, called Old State Iron furnace, and an iron 

 foundry, were built and established in what is now Bath County 

 (previously part of Bourbon County) to utilize the very large de- 

 posit of iron ore in that locality, which yet supplies several furnaces. 



Doctor Samuel Brown, a graduate of Edinburgh and one of the 

 first medical professors in Transylvania University, early in the 

 present century, gave much attention to the natural history of Ken- 

 tucky and contributed to the Transactions of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society and Bruce's Journal of Mineralogy, a description 

 of an unusually large niter cavern on Crooked Creek in Madison 

 County (now in Rockcastle County) ; and in the first volume of Silli- 

 man's American Journal of Science and Arts, described the process 

 by which the niter was made and the best theory of its formation 

 according to the science of his day; giving, in other publications, 

 descriptions of fossils and minerals of Kentucky. 



A more remarkable explorer of early times in this State was Con- 

 stantine S. Rafinesque, born in a suburb of Constantinople, in 1784. 

 Invited to Kentucky in 1819 by his friend, John D. Clifford, who was 

 one of the earliest promoters of natural science in the State, he was ap- 

 pointed professor of natural science, etc., in Transylvania University, 

 under the Rev. Horace Halley, and in 1824 wrote the most remark- 

 able and portentous Annals of Kentuckj^, which were published ah a 

 prefix to the History of Kentucky by Humphrey Marshall, in which, 

 in only 2G duodecimal pages, he gives the geological, ethnological, 

 and historical annals of Kentucky, from the first day of the creation 

 according to Moses, down to the current year. 



The geology and history of this singular production may be esti- 

 mated by the following quotations: 



The parallel strata are formed In the following wny : 1, Uruestone: 2, slate; 

 3, sandstone; 4, freestone; 5, gist; 0, pebblestone. 



By the operations of submarine volcanoes the strata of coal, clay, and amyg- 

 daloid are found and intermixed * ♦ * with the above strata. 



The fourth period of Kentucky history (before Noah's flood) answers to the 

 sixth day or period of the general creation. 



And no one criticized this wonderful display of learning, thus illus- 

 trating the loAv state of science in this State in these early times. 



A remarkable fact in the historj' of this active and visionary natu- 

 ralist is that in a letter written by him to Prof. M. O. Torrey, of 

 New York, dated Deceinbcr 1, 1832, he seems to have anticipated the 

 theory of Charles Darwin as to the evolution of man, by the state- 



