472 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



age of the Medina sandstone or Oneida conglomerate. In this he was 

 in error, the red-sand rock being now universally conceded as belong- 

 ing to the Lower Cambrian. He also regarded the black slate beneath 

 the red-sand rock as belonging to the Hudson River group, although 

 Emmons had regarded it as Taconic and thought to recognize a Pots- 

 dam sandstone in the vicinity of Whitehall, in this respect antagoniz- 

 ing the views of Adams, as announced in his second report. 



The name ^Eolian limestone was given to the marble beds of Dorset 

 Mountain, which had been renamed Mount JEolius. Its exact geolog- 

 ical position was not determined, although it was thought that it might 

 be as new as the Carboniferous. 



Hitchcock was inclined to side with Emmons in the Taconic contro- 

 versy, on the ground that the rocks were physically unlike the Lower 

 Silurian which they underlay and differed in the character of their 

 organic remains. The thickness of these Taconic rocks he estimated 

 to be not less than 25,000 feet. N 



The clay slate directly overlying the calciferous mica schist was 

 thought to be probably of Devonian age. The calciferous mica schist 

 itself was regarded as having been originally a limestone formation 

 charged with a good deal of silex and with perhaps silicates and 

 organic matter, a great deal of the carbonate of lime having been 

 abstracted by carbonated water and the rock converted by metamor- 

 phism into a schist. 



The numerous beds of serpentine which were found in the State 

 limits were regarded as having been derived mainly from beds of horn- 

 blende schist and diorite. Much of the granite of the State was con- 

 sidered as being as recent, at least, as the Devonian period. 



It seems almost extraordinary that, even at this date, there were 

 believed by Hitchcock, as well as by others, to be many well-authen- 

 ticated instances on record in which toads, snakes, and lizards had been 

 found alive in the solid parts of living trees and in solid rocks, as well 

 as in gravel deep beneath the surface. In these cases it was assumed 

 that the animals " undoubtedly crept into such places while young, 

 and, after having grown, could not get out. Being very tenacious of 

 life and probably obtaining some nourishment occasionally by seizing 

 upon insects that might crawl into their nidus, they might sometimes 

 continue alive even after many years." 



Under date of March, 1857, an act of the Wisconsin legislature 

 provided for a geological and agricultural survey of the State, which 

 was to be under the joint control of James Hall, Ezra S. Carr, and 

 Geological Surveys Edward Daniels. This joint leadership seemed, how- 

 Hair i c C a°r" s 'and nder evei \ t° have proven unsatisfactory, and by a second 

 Daniels, 1857. ac ^ approved April 2, 1860, James Hall was appointed 



principal to the commission. This last organization proved also to be 

 short-lived, the survey being discontinued in 1862, the legislature 



