234 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



from Hoosac Mountain to 11 miles cast of the Connecticut River. 

 The rocks were classed as primitive, secondary, and alluvial, the older 

 crystallines and the argillites being- considered as primitive, while the 

 traps and sandstones were put down as secondary. 



The year 1818 was rendered notable also by the appearance in the 

 geological arena of Amos Eaton, a man who, like Hitchcock, was 

 destined to achieve a national reputation, but whose mental character- 

 istics were as unlike Hitchcock's as was possible 

 Eaton's index, 1818. among men in the same calling. His first geological 

 paper occupied three pages of the American Journal 

 of Science for the year under discussion. His first noteworthy publi- 

 cation was the Index to the Geology of the Northern States, which 

 appeared in the form of a text-book for the geological classes at Wil- 

 liams College that same year. Eaton is described as a man of great 

 force, untiring energy, and was one of the most interesting men of his 

 day. In 1816, at the age of forty, he abandoned the practice of law and 

 went to New Haven to attend Silliman's lectures on mineralogy and 

 geology. Subsequently he traveled many thousand miles on foot, 

 throughout New England and New York, delivering in the principal 

 towns short courses of lectures on natural history. In March, 1817, 

 having received an invitation to aid in the introduction of the natural 

 sciences in Williams College, his alma mater, he delivered a course of 

 lectures in Williamstown. Such was the zeal at this institution, he 

 wrote, that "an uncontrollable enthusiasm for natural history took 

 possession of every mind, and other departments of learning were for 

 a time crowded out of the college." In April, 1818, on invitation of 

 Governor De Witt Clinton, he delivered in Albany, before the mem- 

 bers of the State legislature, a course of lectures on natural history. 

 Here was undoubtedly the beginning of the work which resulted in 

 the establishment of the State survey. 



In the "Index 11 mentioned above (which has been pronounced "the 

 first attempt at an arrangement of the geological strata of North 

 America 1 ') the views expressed were naturally largety tinged with 

 Wernerism. They are reviewed in detail here, even when almost 

 exact equivalents, on account of their local application. 



Eaton divided the rocks of the earth's crust into five classes: First, 

 Primitive; second, Transition; third, Secondary; fourth, Superin- 

 cumbent; and, fifth, Alluvial; .the bod}^ of the work, occupying pages 

 15 to 41, inclusive, being given up to their description and geograph- 

 ical distribution. 



Under the head of Primitive rocks he included granite, granular 

 limestone and quartz, gneiss, mica-slate, soapstone rocks, calcareous 

 and granular quartz, and syenite. These were regarded as barren of 

 fossil remains and the oldest rocks to which human research had 

 extended. 



