WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS. 4x3 



was afforded by the observed positions of more than fifty ther- 

 mal springs in the Appalachian belt, occurring in an area of 

 about fifteen thousand square miles, which were shown to 

 issue from anticlinal axes and faults, or from points very near 

 such lines. 



In connection with his brother Robert E. Rogers, now be- 

 come his colleague as Professor of Chemistry and Materia 

 Medica in the university, he published a number of important 

 chemical contributions, relating chiefly to new or improved 

 methods in chemical analysis and research, in Silliman's Jour- 

 nal, between 1840 and 1850. Among these were papers On 

 a New Process for obtaining Pure Chlorine ; A New Process 

 for obtaining Formic Acid, Aldehyde, etc. ; On the Oxidation 

 of the Diamond in the Liquid Way ; On New Instruments and 

 Processes for the Analysis of the Carbonates ; On the Absorp- 

 tion of Carbonic Acid by Liquids, an extended investigation ; 

 and On the Decomposition of Rocks by Carbonated and Mete- 

 oric Waters, a paper of much interest in its geological bear- 

 ings. 



In the volume of the Transactions of the British Associa- 

 tion for 1849, Prof. Rogers called attention to the existence 

 of true coal measures below the horizon of the Carboniferous 

 limestone in the Appalachian belt as discovered by him in the 

 Virginia survey, and referred to in his annual reports. 



Prof. Rogers married June 20, 1849, Miss Emma, daughter 

 of Hon. James Savage, of Boston, President of the Massachu- 

 setts Historical Society, and author of the Genealogical Dic- 

 tionary, and, with his bride, sailed the same day for a trip 

 in Europe. He returned in October to resume his duties in 

 Virginia. Mrs. Rogers became, says William C. Rives,* " the 

 promoter of his labours, the ornament and solace of his middle 

 life, and the devoted companion and support of his declining 

 years." Soon after his death she edited very admirably, with 

 the assistance of Major Jed. Hotchkiss, a Reprint of the Annual 

 Reports and other Papers on the Geology of the Virginias.f 



In 1853 Prof. Rogers resigned his professorship at Char- 

 lottesville, after eighteen years of efficient service, and removed 



* An address delivered before the Society of the Alumni of the University 

 of Virginia, on Comrriencement Day, June 27, 1883. 

 f D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1884. 



