EDWARD TRA\'ERS COX 



By GEORGE P. MERRILL 

 Head Curator of Geology, U. S. National ]Museum 



Edward Travers Cox was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, 

 April 21, 1821, and died at Jacksonville, Florida, January 6, 1907. 



The famil}', wiien the boy was but four years of age, moved to 

 New Harmony, Indiana, joining the communistic colony founded by 

 Robert Owen. Here he was educated, pursuing his geological 

 studies under David Dale Owen, whose assistant he subsequently 

 became on the geological surveys of Arkansas and Kentucky. After 

 the death of Owen, in i860, Cox became 

 engaged in commercial work, and in 1864, 

 in company with R. E. Owen, made ex- 

 aminations of mining properties in New 

 Mexico, including the Spanish Peaks and 

 l?.aton coal fields and the copper and iron 

 mines at the upper Gila River. In 1865, 

 at the request of State Geologist Wor- 

 then, he made an examination of the coal 

 beds of Gallatin County, Illinois, and 

 later those of the southern portions of 

 the same State, the results being pub- 

 lished in the reports of the State survey 

 for 1875. In 1869, wnth the organization 

 of a fourth attempt at a systematic sur- 

 vey, he was appointed State Geologist of 



Indiana, which office he continued to hold until 1880, in the mean- 

 time occupying also the chair of geology in the University of 

 Indiana. 



Annual reports were issued for each of the ten years which marked 

 the life of this survey. Those of 1869 and 1872 were accompanied 

 l3y county maps, though no geological map of the State in its en- 

 tirety was furnished. A colored section across the State from Green- 

 castle to Terre Haute accompanied the report for 1869. 



Cox was assisted during the entire period or for a part of it by 

 Frank H. Bradley, Rufus Haymond, G. M. Levette, B. C. Hobbs, 

 H. B. Warde. W. W. Borden, M. N. Elrod, John Collett, and E. S. 

 Mclntire, the fossil flora 1)eing described by I<eo Eesquereux and the 



H.3 



Fig. 24. Edward Travers 

 Cox 



