AMERICAN GEOLOGY EATONIAN ERA, 1820-1829. 



285 



was to him no argument against this view. "In one ease the vein is 

 lapideous. in the other it is metallic; they are different/, " 



As has been already noted, Olmsted's work in North Carolina 



was continued after his resignation by Prof. Elisha Mitchell, who 



was transferred from the chair of mathematics to that of chemistry, 



mineralogy, and geology at the time of Olmsted's 



Elisha Mitchell's rpsirrrmtinn 



Work, 1827-28. i e&iguauuii. 



Like Olmsted, Mitchell was born in Connecticut and 

 graduated at Yale, going to North Carolina about the same time as did 

 the former. He was known as a man of great culture and erudition, 

 but had manifested no indications of a particular leaning toward geol- 

 ogy until the transfer above noted, and to-day his fame probably rests 

 more upon his knowledge of the physical geography and botany of 

 North Carolina than of its geology. He was 

 an enthusiastic explorer and collector, and, 

 as is well known, finally lost his life on Black. 

 now Mitchell, Mountain in 1857. 



His two most important papers on geology 

 were published in 1828 and 1829, the first 

 relating to the origin of the low country of 

 North Carolina and the second to the geology 

 of the gold regions. In 1812 he published 

 a summary of his work in the form of a 

 text-book for his classes, accompanied by a 

 small geological map of the State, the only 

 map of its kind thus far prepared. A re- 

 port on the mineralogy of the State was 

 also prepared by his assistant, C. E. Rothe, 



of Saxony, in 1827. A geological map of the eastern half of the 

 State was said to have been made, but never published. 



Mitchell, in his paper on the origin of the low country, took the 

 ground that the various strata there found were formed in the bed of 

 the sea and became dry land through the depression of the level of the 

 ocean or the elevation of the land by a force operating from beneath. 

 The shells found by him in these beds proved, in his judgment, that 

 they were of comparatively recent origin, but just how recent he was 

 not prepared to say. The presence of bones of elephants and masto- 

 dons, however, indicated to his mind an elevation prior to the Noaehian 

 deluge, to which catastrophe he evidently attributed their burial. 



PIG. is.— Elisha Mitchell. 



