84 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS \"0L. 52 



fauna of \\'yandotte Cave by E. D. Cope. Zoological and botanical 

 subjects were treated by D. S. Jordan, J. ]\I. Coulter, and J. Schenk. 



These reports as a whole contained little that w'as new or im- 

 pressive. In the eighth, which was the most comprehensive so far 

 issued, Cox himself called attention to the fact that the geological 

 history of the State "appears tame and devoid of the marvelous in- 

 terest which attaches to many other regions, and that there is not a 

 single true fault or upward or downward break or displacement of 

 the strata thus far discovered." The oldest rocks of the State were 

 found in the southeastern portion, extending from the Ohio River 

 near the mouth of Fourteen Mile Creek to the eastern boundary line. 

 These are the so-called Hudson River rocks of Hall, wdiich Cox 

 correlated with Safford's Nashville group, and which Worthen and 

 Meek had included under the name of Cincinnati group. He re- 

 garded the Silurian strata "as uplifted, not by a local disturbance, 

 but "by an elevating force that acted very slowly and extending over 

 the entire central area of the United States." The seat of greatest 

 force, he thought, however, was not limited to southwestern Ohio, 

 but was to be looked for in Kentucky. 



Cox accepted the general theory of glacial drift as at present un- 

 derstood, and conceived that the climatic changes might be due to 

 the relative position of land and water, possibly a change in the 

 'course of the Gulf Stream. He could find no evidence of a subsi- 

 dence of the land to terminate the glacial period, nor could he find 

 in Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois anything to militate against the com- 

 mencement of a glacial period in Tertiary times and its continuation 

 "until brought to a close by its own erosive force, aided by atmos- 

 pheric and meteorological conditions. By these combined agencies 

 acting through time the mountain home of the glacier was cut down 

 and a general leveling of the land took place." 



After retiring from the survey, in 1880, Cox once more resumed 

 private work, n^aking Xew York City his headquarters. Becoming 

 interested in the phosphate deposits of Florida, he removed to that 

 state, taking up his residence at Albion, in Levy County. For a time 

 he was employed as chemist of the Portland Phosphate Company, 

 and from 1896 to 1902 served also as postmaster at Albion. In the 

 latter year he retired from active work and removed to Jacksonville, 

 where he died on January 6, 1907, at the ripe age of eighty-five 

 vears. 



