454 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



Gila region, New Mexico, was thought to be Devonian, though no 

 fossils were found by which the age might be definitely proven. What 

 fossils were collected during this expedition were described by Conrad 

 and were all Tertiary forms. 



As with Hitchcock and other of the early workers, he failed to real- 

 ize the full capabilities of river action during gradual crustal move- 

 ment, and found the same difficulty in accounting for the course of 

 the Gila that Hitchcock did with that of the Connecticut (p. 310). 



During the series of elevations [he wrote] which finally uplifted this range (the 

 Pinaleno) to its present altitude, the upheaving force must have been exerted even 

 upon the southern portion of the range, raising the table-land of northern Sonora 

 and Chiricahua to so great a height. This strain may have produced a fissure from 

 east to west, or cracked and perhaps depressed the strata along parallel 33°, and 

 thus enabled the Gila to take that as a permanent course. Some such catastrophe 

 must have occurred, for it is scarcely probable that the river unaided Could have 

 cut through such lofty hills and hard rocks as it appears to have done in its passage 

 through these mountains, running as it does at right angles to the strike of the 

 ranges. 



Antisell's report was accompanied by numerous sections in black.and 

 white through the coast ranges, and a colored geological map of the 



region extending from San Francisco to Los 

 Angeles; also by a colored map and section 

 of the region from the Rio Grande (then 

 known as the Rio Bravo del Norte) to beyond 

 Maricopa Wells (llL> 30'). 



Antisell was born in Ireland, of French 

 Huguenot parentage, in 1817, and came to 

 America for political rea- 

 sketch of Antiseii. sons in 1848, where he prac- 

 ticed medicine until 1854, 

 though in the meantime holding the position 

 of lecturer on chemistry in a number of col- 

 leges, including those of Woodstock, Ver- 

 mont; Pittsfield, Massachusetts; and at the 

 Berkshire Medical Institute. Prior to his 

 American experiences, though by profession a surgeon, he had mani- 

 fested a lively interest in matters pertaining to other sciences, and had 

 published in 1 84b a duodecimo volume of 84 pages on Irish geology 

 and a manual of agricultural chemistry, prepared with especial refer- 

 ence to the soils of Ireland. His work with the Pacific Railroad Sur- 

 vey, above noted, comprised his only geological investigations after 

 coming to America. 



In 185b he was appointed an examiner in the Patent Office, but 

 resigned to enter the Union Army as surgeon in 1861. In 1866 he 

 became chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture, and in 1871 

 was appointed by the Japanese Government an expert in chemical 



Thomas Antisell. 



