CHAPTER II. 



THE EATONIAN ERA, 1820-1829. 



According to Amos Eaton, 1820 marked the close of the first era of 

 American geology. Accepting this, it may well be called the Maclur- 

 ean era. The second, including the decade 1820-1829, may with equal 

 propriety be called the Eatonian era, since Eaton was the most promi- 

 nent worker as well as most profuse writer of the decade. In so doing, 

 however, we must not overlook the fact that Eaton was favored with 

 unusual opportunities, owing to the munificence of the Hon. Stephen 

 Van Rensselaer and that he, himself, would perhaps have called it the 

 Rensselaerian era. 



The era opened with promise, and though the results as apparent 

 on paper were not great, yet much was actually accomplished. It was, 

 so to speak, a transition period, one in which the possibilities of State 

 and Governmental surveys were seriously considered, and one, too, in 

 which, so far as America was concerned, there was made the first sys- 

 tematic attempt at correlation by means of fossils. We meet, too, 

 during this interval the first really satisfactory suggestion as to the 

 source of the glacial drift, the first recognition of overturned folds 

 and the possibility of the repetition of strata through faulting and dis- 

 placement. The cosmogonists had largely disappeared and in their 

 place were men who had learned to first observe and then deduce 

 according to their understanding of the observed phenomena. 



In 1820 Eaton published a second edition of his Index in the form 

 of a small octavo volume of 286 pages. In this many of the earlier 

 opinions were restated with little, if any, modification. His views rel- 

 ative to the origin of the continents were illustrated 

 i^on^ndlx n i O 820. D .Y tne P late here reproduced, but the source of the 

 energy which resulted in the elevation of the continents 

 was still unexplained. He asserted: 



That the rents made by the grand explosion, which first upturned and disfigured 

 the rocky crust of the earth, were in a north and south direction. That those cross- 

 ing the forty-second degree of north latitude were principally made at the Pyrenees 

 and Alps in Europe, Caucasus, Tartary, and China in Asia. Rocky Mountain and 

 New England in America. 



Whether this theory accords with the real origin of the present state of things or 

 not is immaterial. It is introduced solely for the purpose of aiding the memory in 

 studying the strata which we know do exist. 



251 



