THROUGH THE GEOLOGIST'S EYES 



seem really to have grown and multiplied like or- 

 ganic beings; the seed of the granite seems to have 

 fertilized the whole world of waters, and in due time 

 they brought forth this huge family of stratified 

 rocks. There stands the Archsean Adam, his head 

 and chest in Canada, his two unequal legs running, 

 one down the Pacific coast, and one down the At- 

 lantic Coast, and from his loins, we are told, all the 

 progeny of rocks and soils that make up the conti- 

 nent have sprung, one generation succeeding an- 

 other in regular order. His latest offspring is in the 

 South and Southwest, and in the interior. These 

 are the new countries, geologically speaking, as well 

 as humanly speaking. 



The great interior sea, epicontinental, the geolo- 

 gists call it, seems to have been fermenting and 

 laboring for untold seons in building up these parts 

 of the continent. In the older Eastern States we find 

 the sons and grandsons of the old Adam granite; but 

 in the South and West we find his offspring of the 

 twentieth or twenty-fifth generation, and so unlike 

 their forebears; the Permian rocks, for instance, and 

 the Cretaceous rocks, are soft and unenduring, for 

 the most part. The later slates, too, are degener- 

 ates, and much of the sandstones have the hearts of 

 prodigals. In the Bad Lands of Arizona I could have 

 cut my way into some of the Eocene formations 

 with my pocket-knife. Apparently the farther away 

 we get from the parent granite, the more easily is 



103 



