AMERICAN GEOLOGY MACLUREAN ERA, 1785-1819. 245 



feet above the present ordinary watermark. This was made sufficiently 

 evident to him by the general elevation and direction of the hills, which 

 for several hundred miles above are separated by a valley from 20 to 

 25 miles wide. Wherever these hills disclosed rocky and precipitous 

 fronts a series of distinctly-marked old water lines were observed. 

 The Grand Tower and the contiguous promontories were regarded as 

 but the dilapidated remains of this barrier. On the breaking away of 

 the obstructions the water gradually receded into existing channels, by 

 which the inland sea was gradually drained. 



One of the most curious features of this paper lies in his pronounced 

 acceptation of the accuracy of the various reports relative to the find- 

 ing of living animals embedded in rocks of considerable geological 

 antiquity. He mentioned the finding at Carthage, on the Genesee, of 

 twelve or fifteen frogs embedded in a layer of packed clay marl about 

 9 feet below the surface, where they had apparently been buried since 

 the diluvial era; also the finding of one in a geode in the Niagara lime- 

 stone at Lockport. As bearing upon the same subject, he gave in his 

 addenda a series of accounts of the finding of various living animals 

 under equally impossible conditions, which he seems to accept without 

 question. 



In 1819-20 Maj. Stephen H. Long, under the direction of John C. 

 Calhoun, Secretary of War, made an expedition from Pittsburg to 

 the Rocky Mountains. With him were associated Thomas Say, 

 entomologist, and Edwin James, botanist and geolo- 

 mf-2o Expediti ° n ' gist. The accounts of the expedition, compiled by 

 Mr. .Tames, contain numerous references to the geol- 

 ogy of the region, which are of interest, considering the time at which 

 they were made. The route of the expedition la} T from Pittsburg 

 down the Ohio to its mouth, up the Mississippi to St. Louis, and 

 northwestward to Council Bluffs; thence westward along the Platte 

 and South Platte to a point a little west of the one hundred and fifth 

 meridian and north of the thirty-fifth parallel; across to the Arkansas, 

 which was followed down to a point a little east of the one hundred 

 and fourth meridian, where the party divided, one returning by the 

 Arkansas and the other by the Canadian River. 



The reports on geology were, naturally, largely tinged with Werner- 

 ism. It was noted that, in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, only 

 Secondary rocks occurred, Transition forms being entirely lacking. He 

 noted, first, the occurrence of red sandstone resting immediatel}' on the 

 granite, rather indistinctly stratified, the strata sometimes inclined and 

 sometimes horizontal; second, argillaceous or gray sandstone overlying 

 the red and conforming to it in its inclination and carrying sometimes 

 coal and iron; third, floetz trap, including greenstone and amygdaloid; 

 and fourth, sand and gravel restingon thesandstones and extending over 

 the Great Desert, this latter material being recognized as a product of 



