A CENTURY OF GEOLOGY IN INDIANA. 105 



"It will at once be seen that this is a work which can be fully accomplished 

 only by the united labors of several individuals, by the expenditure of con- 

 siderable capital, and by the consumption of much time. Whether Indiana 

 would be warranted in carrying out, at the present juncture, so expensive an 

 undertaking, it is not for me to determine. I can but express my opinion 

 that it would ultimately amply repay all outlays and labor." 



"A more economical, and, of course, a more superficial and less satis- 

 factory course, might be pursued — a course similar to that which was neces- 

 sarily adopted during the past season. It would be for the geologist to travel 

 from place to place, make merely ocular, or perhaps partial surveys with 

 instruments, of the various beds of rocks, and determine, by approximation, 

 their thickness, dip, succession, etc.; to collect, as far as time and opportunity 

 wiU permit, specimens and fossils; and to follow up the before mentioned 

 objects as far as the time and exertions of one individual may suffice for 

 that purpose." 



"This plan, of course, could not pretend to the same accuracy of detail 

 as the former. StiU much that is important might be accomplished. The 

 more extensive plan is that pursued in the Atlantic States, and which, I 

 presume, will ultimately be adopted in Michigan and Ohio." 



Those of us who have had to carry on geological work in the State of 

 Indiana have always been compelled to adopt the more economical and more 

 superficial plan mentioned by Dr. Owen, solely because the great State of 

 Indiana was too niggardly in her offerings to enable us to do the better work. 



In the second year (1838) Dr. Owen continued his work along economic 

 lines, paying especial attention to the coals, iron ores and building stones of 

 the State, and also making a special study of the conditions under which brine 

 or salt water occurs, since salt at that time was an important commodity 

 and difficult to obtain. As Owen's home was in southern Indiana, where out- 

 crops of rock were frequent and easily studied, where most of the "public 

 works" of that period were in progress and where coal and iron ores were 

 most abundant, we find his second report, as was his first, mainly devoted 

 to that region. He first took up briefly each of the southern counties and 

 described its more important mineral resources. In the chapter on Posey 

 County he mentioned especially the siliceous marl or marl-loess deposits 

 which oiitcrop six to eight feet thick in may localities, giving their chemical 

 analysis and recommending their use for improving some of the adjacent 

 sandy soils. He gives sections of the exposed rocks in the coal forma- 

 tions of Posey, Vanderburg and Warrick Counties, mentions the fruitless 

 search for silver in Dubois County, which, despite his early warnings, was 

 continued as late as 1905. In the chapter on Dubois and Orange Counties, 

 Dr. Owen gives the first description in geological literature of the now world 

 famous French Lick Springs. His remarks are as follows: 



"Near the termination of the sandstone formation, but rising through the 

 inferior limestones at the French Lick, is a saline spring, strongly charged 

 with sulphuretted hydrogen; so much so that, after sunset in a summer even- 



