Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 145 



bergs, affording useful facts connected with the theory of drift. At the 

 preceding meeting Mr. Couthouy it will be remembered read an inter- 

 esting paper, descriptive of some of the phenomena of icebergs as wit- 

 nessed by himself at various times. This paper, published in our pro- 

 ceedings, contains important statements in relation to the partial rotation 

 of icebergs when aground. 



Among the chemico-geological communications recently made to the 

 Association, is one by Prof. Lewis C. Beck on the bituminous matter in 

 several of the limestones and sandstones of New York, and another by 

 Dr. Charles T. Jackson, on the organic matters of soils. 



PRESENT STATE OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE FORMATIONS OF THE 



UNITED STATES. 



I shall now review as briefly as practicable, the geology of this coun- 

 try, and show the development which it has reached through the re- 

 searches above cited, through those of earlier date and those not yet in 

 Print. In taking such a survey we shall find that, while the materials 

 a ready gathered, form a valuable accession to the positive geology of 

 r times, some of the conclusions arrived at, and many of the ques- 

 °os presented, bear upon some of the most fundamental gencraliza- 

 t] °ns of the science. 



e t us enquire in the first place, what we know touching our palceo- 

 ° strata i the sediments of that enormous sea, which filling once the 



e interior of our continent, has its history, despite of all catastrophes, 

 eautifully recorded in the vast sheets of matter, which from beyond the 



es t0 Alabama, and from the Atlantic slope to the far Missouri, tell 



1 depths and changes, its earthquakes, its intervals of long repose, 

 lhe st ructure and mode of life of its inhabitants. As the most ex- 



P ed ' and by far the most complicated in its outcrops of all the sys- 



ms of strata this side of the Mississippi, it may be well to ascertain 



er ow wicJ e an area we have succeeded in tracing and mapping its 



Serous subordinate formations, and as the repository of a host of or- 



^ ni e relics, leading us back to the extreme dawn of animal and veget- 



e "fe, and forward through a long series of successive creations, it 



Comes °f the highest interest to learn how far we have advanced in 



" ori ng its fossils, and in framing in accordance with their distribution, 



a ^ssification of the formations which shall be widely applicable. 



e outcrops then of these vast formations, commencing at the north- 



,n Vermont, have been traced through the western border of Mas- 



y |* Setts by Hitchcock, and westward through New York by Emmons, 



' ***, No. 1 —April-June, 1844. 19 





