458 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



This report shows on the part of Saft'ord a thorough insight into the 

 intricacies of the structure of the State and an ability to grasp the 

 salient features and master the broader problems in a manner perhaps 

 not realized by many of his contemporaries and successors. 



• The second biennial report, which appeared in 1857, gave simply a 

 brief account of the objects and utility of the survey, with a general 

 summary of what had been accomplished. 



In this connection Richard O. Currey's Sketch of the Geology of the 

 same State may be mentioned briefly. Currey bad been a pupil of 

 Troost and later a professor of chemistry and geology in East Ten- 

 nessee University. His geological writings are few 



R.O.Currey's Sketch -,,..,-, • , . u 4-U a i-\ 



of the Geology of and limited mainly to such papers as the Southern 



Tennessee, 1857. T , , __ ,. . i -r»i i n • , i at i 



Journal or Medical and Physical Sciences, the Nash- 

 ville Banner, and The Virginias. The sketches above referred to were 

 first published in 1853 in the Nashville Banner, and subsequently 

 brought out, under the title quoted, in form of a booklet of 128 pages, 

 accompanied by a reprint of Safford's ma}) in black and white. 



In 1854 Dr. Ebenezer Emmons began the publication of a work on 

 American Geology, the intention being, as announced in the "pro- 

 posals," to bring it out in four or five parts, each of which should 



contain about 200 pages of matter. The first part, 

 qZZIT, i854. erican containing 194 pages, was issued at Albany in 1854. 



It was given up mainly to a discussion of the general 

 principles of geology, of the rocks composing the earth's crust, and 

 some 70 pages devoted to An Application of Geological Facts and 

 Principles to the Business of Mining. Part II — the last that was ever 

 issued — comprised 250 pages and 18 plates, and was given up to an 

 exposition of the author's views on the Taconic and Lower Silurian 

 systems as developed in America and England. 



This work, as outlined, was by far the most pretentious of its kind 

 that had thus far appeared in America, antedating Dana's Manual by 

 some ten years, and having for its predecessors only the American 

 reprints of Bakewell's Introduction, Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, 

 and De La Beche's Manual, besides the smaller text-books of Eaton 

 and Emmons, published in the twenties, and which have been pre- 

 viously noted. There was, therefore, ample room for a work of this 

 nature, but it is doubtful if the occasion was propitious or Emmons 

 the man for the task. Too much of the work (122 pages) was given 

 up to a defense of the author's own peculiar views, which were not in 

 all cases the best, or most generally accepted. His style was poor, 

 often lacking in perspicuity, and in many ways he laid himself open to 

 savage onslaughts of criticism." Unjust as much of this criticism may 

 have been, Emmons, it must be confessed, showed singular ignorance 



"See Hall's review (unsigned) in the American Journal of Science, XIX, May, 1855. 



