86 On the Silurian System. 
So much has lately been presented to the public, either through 
the newspapers, journals, or lectures, which I consider demon- 
_ strably incorrect, that 1 can hardly, consistently with my love of 
true science, remain an inactive observer of the consequent per- 
“version of the public mind. Unfortunately it is difficult if not 
‘impossible to discuss such subjects without a resort to language 
_and ideas, which are too technical and abstruse for persons who 
_ have not made chemistry and electricity an object of study. oe 
have however prepared a series of essays, in which the causes of » 
storms are stated, agreeably to my view of this important branch | 
: « ‘meteorology. 
Arr. XIIL—On the Silurian System, with a oaks 2S the Strata 
and Ch varacteristic Fossils ; 2 'T. A. Conra 
Tur geological structure of thet Ti tory 
ginning to be fairly understood, througt 
State geologists. We no longer confine rarer to fife, eum, te | 
of transition and grauwacke, but are aware that many distinct for.” . 
mations have been so designated. Prof, Eaton has long since given 
names to some of these, which have been found useful, and would > 
have been much more so, had the fossils b collected in suflic ient og N | 
numbers, and with great care to preserve their stratigraphical 
lations. But this is a work of time and labor, and could a 
expected of an individual who had other. duties to perform,-and 
at a period when the transition with i its beautiful fossils, and other 
most interesting history were almost wholly neglected even iD 
Europe? Taking a glance at the geology of the United States, 
-we find the Silurian system of Murchison spread over the greater 
portion of New York, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee, 
and terminating on the south in the mountainous or rather hilly 
region of North Alabama. In the vicinity of Florence and Tus 
cumbia we find the Oriskany sandstone, (as designated in the New 
York reports,) a rock very easily recognized by its casts and im 
pressions of large brachiopodous bivalves, quite unlike, as a group, 
to any fossils above or below them. In Europe, a rock termed 
old red sandstone separates the Silurian from the carboniferous sy5 
tems, and fortunately I have detected the same rock, and with its 
at 
