266 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



professor of geology and mineralogy in Birmingham, England. This 

 appears to have been the first attempt at a subdi- 



Finch's Subdivision . . . *- . 



of the Tertiary, vision ot the tertiary deposits and their scientific 

 correlation, and was, beyond question, the most impor- 

 tant contribution to the stratigraphy of the region that had thus far 

 appeared. 



From an examination of all available data, as well as from a per- 

 sonal inspection of a part of the area, Finch was led to conclude that 

 this formation, as existing in America, was identical and contempora- 

 neous with the newer Secondary and Tertiary formations of Europe 

 and other countries. 



In this same year Finch gave also a short sketch of the geolog} 7 of 

 the country near Easton, Pennsylvania, his paper being accompanied 

 by a small colored map and catalogue of minerals. According to 

 J. P. Lesley, this was the first paper on the geology of Pennsylvania 

 to appear in the pages of the American Journal of Science. 



The paper on the coastal plain, above noted, is b}^ all means the 

 most important of Finch's geological publications, though in the 

 American Journal of Science for 1826 he had a brief "Memoir' 1 

 (3i pages) on the red-brown sandstones of the Connecticut Valley and 

 New Jersey, where he expressed the opinion that such should be con- 

 sidered as belonging to the new-red or variegated sandstones of Europe 

 rather than to the old-red, as contended by some. In this he was right. 



In 1823, too, Denison Olmsted, "a Connecticut school-teacher/ 1 



was authorized by the president of the State board of agriculture of 



North Carolina to make a geological survey of the State. This act is 



sometimes referred to with sectional pride as being 



Olmsted's Work in _ , , _, 



North Carolina, the first survev undertaken under State auspices." 



1823 



Olmsted's first report, a pamphlet of 41 pages, 

 appeared under date of 1821 and was mainly of an economic character, 

 dealing only with the distribution in the State of such substances as 

 graphite, gold, coal, and building stones. 



His second report appeared in 1827, but bore on the title-page the 

 date 1825. He naturally dwelt upon the agricultural possibilities of 

 the country and the suitability of its limestones and marls for ferti- 

 lizing purposes. Some space was devoted to the great slate formation '' 



"The work of Eaton in New York in 1824 was the first sufficiently thorough and 

 systematic survey to be dignified as a geological survey, though as this was done 

 under the patronage of Hon. Stephen Van Rensselaer, it can. not be considered a 

 public survey. To Massachusetts credit must be given for the first geological survey 

 made at the expense of the State, the same being begun under the direction of Rev. 

 Edward Hitchcock in 1830. (See p. 307. ) 



& Olmsted's great slate formation lies west of and parallel with the freestone coal 

 formation (Triassic) occupying more or less of the counties of Person, Orange, 

 Chatham, Randolph, Montgomery, Cabarrus, Anson, and Mecklenburg and corre- 

 sponds, therefore, to the Huronian of Kerr and recent workers. 



