350 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1004. 



equivalentof the Cliff rock (Niagaran) of Doctor Locke; this, in its turn, 

 by a series of black slates, the equivalent of the Waverly sandstones 

 of Ohio, and this in turn by a series of limestones in part oolitic and 

 the equivalent of the Ohio conglomerate. This last, immediately upon 

 which the coal formation rests at Oil Creek, in Perry County, he con- 

 sidered the uppermost member of a new series, to which he applied 

 the name sub-Carboniferous, "as indicating its position immediately 

 beneath the coal or Carboniferous group of Indiana, 1 ' and "which 

 merely indicates its position beneath the Carboniferous group without 

 involving any theory." 



Immediately overlying this sub-Carboniferous limestone was his 

 bituminous coal formation, the latest and youngest of the series with 

 the exception of the diluvium. He regarded the bituminous coal for- 

 mation as a part of a great coal held which included nearly the whole 

 of Iowa and Illinois and eight or ten counties in the northwestern part 

 of Kentucky, and recognized the improbabilit3 r of anthracite coal being 

 found within the limits of the State. 



He recognized the importance of fossils in geological correlation 

 and, through the presence of the characteristic forms pentremites and 

 archimedes, correctly referred the oolitic rock to the sub-Carbonifer- 

 ous, notwithstanding its close lithological resemblance to the Jurassic 

 oolites of England and the European continent." 



David Dale Owen was a son of Robert Owen, the well-known phil- 

 anthropist and founder of the communistic societies at New Lanark, 

 Scotland, and New Harmony, Indiana. He first came to America in 

 1828, but in 1831 returned to Europe, in company 

 ixD^Owen. with Prof. H. D. Rogers, for the purpose of qualify- 



ing himself in chemistry and geology. Returning to 

 America in 1832, he studied medicine at the Ohio Medical College in 

 Cincinnati, from whence he graduated in 1836. 



His earliest geological work was done in connection with Dr. Gerard 

 Troost in Tennessee, and his earliest independent work that which has 

 just been mentioned. Subsequently he made surveys under the United 

 States General Land Office, in which work he showed administrative 

 ability of no ordinary kind. Indeed, the organization and carrying out 

 of the plan for a survey of the mineral lands of Iowa, Minnesota, and 

 Wisconsin (in 1839-40) within the short space of time and under the 

 conditions imposed Vy Congress was a feat of generalship which has 

 never been equalled in American geological history. 



« There are ni merous references in the reports of 1838 and 1839 to sections and a 

 geological map which, however, were apparently never published. In a partial 

 reprint hearing date of 1859 entitled "Continuation of Report, of the Geological 

 Reconnaissance of the State of Indiana," made in 1838, where reference is again 

 made to tins map, occurs the following footnote: "The original geological map here 

 referred to was deposited in the State library hut lias not been published." 



