430 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904; 



William Logan, -lames G. Percival, J. S. Newberry. James Safford, 

 G. C. Swallow, Alexander Winchell, and Amos H. Worthen. 



An agricultural and geological survey of Mississippi way inaugu- 

 rated in connection with the State University through an act of the 

 legislature approved March 5, 1850. Under this act Dr. John Mil- 

 MHiington and ling-ton was appointed professor of geology and agri- 



MAsfs S si S p^ o i850- culture, in connection with the professorship of 

 1852 \ chemistry, which he already held. Professor Milling- 



ton, however, relinquished the situation the latter part of 1850 with- 

 out having made a report, and in 1852 was succeeded by Prof. B. L. C. 

 Wailes. Professor Wailes made but one report, this an octavo vol- 

 ume of 356 pages and an appendix. Of this, but pages 207 to 288 

 deal with matters strictly geological. The work is by no means of a 

 high order and made no permanent impression upon the science of 

 geology either in the State or country at large. His colored sections 

 are crude and the language pedantic. In fact, there is scarcely a sin- 

 gle original observation which can be unhesitatingly accepted, owing 

 to the general air of unfamiliarity with the subject that everywhere 

 prevails. 



He made no attempt to classify the rocks he described otherwise 

 than Cretaceous, Tertiary, and Quaternary, and inferentially classed 

 among the latter the sandstones of the Grand Gulf group, which he 

 mentioned as overlying the Diluvial gravel. He traced correctly, 

 according to Hilgard, the northern limits of Grand Gulf formation 

 from the Mississippi across the Pearl River to Brandon, and described 

 its occurrence in southwestern Mississippi. 



In 1851 Ebenezer Emmons, heretofore connected with the survey of 

 New York, was appointed State geologist of North Carolina, a posi- 

 tion he continued to hold until the time of his death in 1863, though the 

 work of the survey came to a close in 1860, owing to 



E. Emmons's Work . . . .. „ • i i 



in North Carolina, the outbreak of the civil war. Emmons was assisted by 



1 851 



his son, Ebenezer Emmons, jr., and during his period 

 of office issued live reports, the first, bearing the date of 1852, forming 

 an octavo pamphlet of 181 pages. It related principally to the geology 

 of the eastern counties and the coal. Emmons recognized the fact 

 that the coal-bearing rocks of North Carolina were not of the same age 

 as those of Pennsylvania, and regarded them as presumably of the 

 same age as those of the Richmond coal fields, which at that time were 

 thought by Prof. W. B. Rogers to be Liassic, though Emmons ques- 

 tioned if they might not be Permian or Triassic 



The tinding of saurian remains in the sandstones he regarded as 

 pointing to their possible Permian age, though 



The meager list of plants and animals * * * furnish only grounds for conjec- 

 ture to what age the formations belong. My opinion, derived from all the farts and 

 circumstances known to me, inclines me to adopt the belief that it is the upper New 



