258 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



While all this was taking - place on the American continent, the 

 material supplied by the melting- of the south Polar ice cap was tind- 

 ing- its way northward over Asia, carrying" with it to northern Siberia 

 the mammoth, rhinoceros, and other gigantic animal remains now 

 there found. In this last, it will be observed, he followed Pallas. 



The opinion held by many to the effect that the deltas of rivers 

 were composed exclusively of alluvion brought down in the course of 

 time and deposited at their mouths, he regarded as "a flagrant dere- 

 liction from truth and every principle of sound reasoning and estab- 

 lished fact." Such he regarded as formed in part of natural alluvion 

 of the rivers, in part of wind-blown sand and dust, and in part of waste 

 from the fields due to cultivation and the cutting away of forests. 

 Thus early he recognized the importance of man as a geological agent, 

 and also that of the wind. He nowhere in the whole 150 pages of 

 the discussion, however, recognized the now well-known fact that 

 deltas are formed only at the mouths of rivers emptying into tide- 

 less seas. 



Strangely enough, although one of the earliest to recognize the 

 extent and importance of the alluvial formations. Hayden seems to 

 have had very hazy notions regarding the origin of their materials. 

 The belief held by many to the effect that ever} r species of rock is 

 liable to a slow but progressive form of disintegration and decomposi- 

 tion was to him rank heresy, as '■'tantamount to a libel against the 

 letter and spirit of Holy Writ." Not but that some rocks may indeed 

 decompose, such as the "micaceous schistus," but "granite and other 

 rocks of like nature, where the quartz feldspar and mica are perfectly 

 combined, are practically indestructible;" and the arguments he used 

 to prove this are precisely those used to-day to prove the rapidity of 

 the destructive process — that is, the evidence furnished by old stone 

 monuments and buildings. Blinded by his religious prejudices and 

 preconceived notions, he refused to accept proof of such decay, even 

 when confronted by it in unmistakable forms, referring to such as but 

 the " debris of the incompact or imperfectly formed mass that served as 

 the covering, as it were, of the rocks, and which, being destitute of 

 a cement, had fallen away to sand/''' 



Even that "the soil which covers the face of the earth was produced 

 by the disintegration of rocks'' was to him an opinion unfounded 

 both in natural as well as in moral philosophy, and betrayed a want 

 of attention to the plans of the Omnipotent. "Who can or will con- 

 tend that the mountains of our earth are becoming more and more 

 depressed by the disintegration of the rocks of which they are com- 

 posed? * * * Fortunately, however, it is not so. The Great 

 Author of Nature intended it otherwise, and they are, and ever have 

 been, the same in height, in all human probability, that they were 

 from the commencement of time."' 



