182 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



FKOM PROFESSOR WILLIAM B. ROGERS. 



UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 

 May 17, 1839. 



You will remark a similarity in my mode of 



grasping the formations in our Appalachian and Alleghany 

 regions with that adopted by my brother in Pennsylvania. In 

 fact, we work in concert, and coinciding in our geological 

 views have adopted the same methods. It gives me pleasure 

 to find, by information from Europe, that our cautious, though 

 extremely laborious mode of research meets the approbation 

 of the sound and judicious geologists abroad ; and I feel 

 perfectly assured that when the entire body of our results, 

 with the multitude of illustrative sections, and other de 

 lineations shall be made public, there will be but one 

 opinion as to the philosophy of the course we are pursuing. 

 The phenomena of structure, the illustration of the direc 

 tions and comparative energies of geological forces will, I 

 am sure, be regarded as important additions to geological 

 dynamics. In fact, I am bold enough to hope that many 

 important general views, not without novelty, will be pre 

 sented, which from the wide scale of our formations and the 

 symmetrical operation of the great disturbing forces to 

 which they have been exposed, we have been enabled to 

 elucidate more clearly than could be done anywhere in 

 Europe 



