[parks] presidential ADDRESS 3 



to Geology," while not purely Wernerian, savours largely of that 

 school, and the last edition, issued in 1838, disregards entirely the 

 work of Smith and discountenances the use of fossils for the determina- 

 tion of horizons. The second American edition of this work, pub- 

 lished in 1833, attributes the stratigraphie column with its entombed 

 organic remains to Noah's deluge. 



During this period, as we have seen, stratigraphie geology and 

 its twin sister, palaeontology, have become differentiated and hence- 

 forth are to be regarded as more or less distinct branches of the 

 science. The concentration of effort thus attained bore wonderful 

 fruit: Sedgwick announced the Cambrian sy:stem in 1836, Murchison 

 created the Silurian in 1839, and these two distinguished stratigra- 

 phers working together unravelled the Devonian system in 1839. 

 The problem of the "Transition" rocks was at last solved, although 

 many years elapsed before full recognition was given to the labours 

 of these two great pioneers. 



Significant of this period was the appointment of Wm. Buckland 

 as first professor of geology at Oxford and the establishment of the 

 Geological Survey of the United Kingdom under de la Beche in 1835. 

 While the fame of Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) will forever rest 

 chiefly on his announcement of the doctrine of "uniformitarianism," 

 it must not be forgotten, from the present point of view, that he 

 proposed in 1832 to divide the Tertiary into Eocene, Miocene, and 

 Pliocene. 



The second period of American geology begins about 1820. 

 Merrill has called the first half (1820-1829) of the period we are con- 

 sidering the "Eatonian Era." It is characterized by the first serious 

 attempts to correlate American strata by means of fossils and by 

 efforts towards the establishment of state surveys. 



The second decade (1830-1840) is termed by Merrill the "First 

 Decade of the Era of State Surveys." During this time geological 

 investigations under government control were carried on in Massa- 

 chusetts, Tennessee, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, 

 Delaware, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Georgia, and North and South 

 Carolina. It is worthy of note, also, that Nicollet carried geological 

 investigation west of the Mississippi river. 



This survey of the development of geological science has been 

 necessary in order to realize the conditions under which the earlier 

 contributions to Canadian geology appeared. In 1823 Dr. J. J. 

 Bigsby, Secretary to the Boundary Commission .under the Treaty 

 of Ghent, published "Notes on the Geology and Geography of Lake 

 Huron." 



