428 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



Tyson's Work in 

 Maryland. 



During the session of 1847-48 the legislature of Maryland passed an 



act providing for the appointment and commission of a "person of 



ability, integrity, and suitable practical and scientific attainments," 



who should act as agricultural chemist for the State. 



Higgins's Work in . . 



Maryland, Ihese requirements seem to have been met in the per- 



I 848=1 8 58 



son of Dr. James Higgins, who received the appoint- 

 ment and held the office until 1858, during which time he issued live 

 reports. The office was not really a geological one, and the matter is 

 mentioned here as bearing upon the subject only indirectly. During 

 the session of 1858 bills were brought before the legislature to have 

 the title of the office changed to geologist and, again, to chemist and 



geologist. Both, however, 

 failed. Higgins was suc- 

 ceeded in 1859 by the Philip 

 Tyson above noted, whose first report of 145 

 octavo pages and appendix of 20 pages was 

 issued February 14, I860. Like the reports 

 of his predecessor, this was given up very 

 largely to a discussion of agricultural ques- 

 tions, but contained chapters on the Min- 

 erals Comprising the Rocks of the State; 

 The Mineral Character of Rocks; The Con- 

 sideration of the Rocks as Grouped into 

 Geological Formations, and also their Geo- 

 graphic Distribution in Maryland; and on 

 Chemical and Physical Geology, in which 

 the question of the origin of soils through rock weathering was 

 discussed. 



The main interest in the work, from our present standpoint, lies in 

 the colored geological map (and sections) which accompanied it, and 

 which had the merit of being the first special map of the State, the 

 area having, of course, been included in the general maps of Maclure 

 and others. The various formations were classified according to the 

 scheme of Rogers for the map of Pennsylvania, and a table given 

 showing which of these were found within the State limits. The second 

 report, which appeared in 1862, comprised 92 pages, and was given 

 over almost wholly to a discussion of economic questions, including 

 the soils and ores, coal, marbles, clays, etc. From the presence of 

 fossil cycads, found associated with the iron ores, Tyson was disposed 

 to consider these and the clays in which they occur as belonging to the 

 oolitic period." 



Fig. 51.— "Philip Thomas Tyson. 



a L. F. Ward, in his paper in the Nineteenth Annual Report of the U. S. Geolog- 

 ical Survey, L897-98, puts these down as Cretaceous (Potomac). 



