AMERICAN GEOLOGY DECADE OF 1850—1859. 



499 



Sketch of 

 Lesquereux 



Arkansas began in 1850, and his papers appear in the geological sur- 

 vey reports of all these States. His work on the coal flora of Penn- 

 sylvania was particularly valuable, forming what was 

 at the time the most important work on Carboniferous 

 plants published in America. Lesquereux became early 

 connected with the Hay den surveys, and to 

 the time of his death, in 1889, was actively 

 engaged in the study of the materials col- 

 lected by members of this organization. 

 Deaf from early manhood, a foreigner, 

 with but poor command of English, he 

 labored under enormous disadvantages. 

 To an interviewer he once remarked: 



The science student's life is absorbed with grave 

 ami serious truths; they are naturally serious men. 

 My associations have been almost entirely of a 

 scientific nature. My deafness cut me off from 

 everything that lay outside of science. I have 

 lived with nature, the rocks, the trees, the flowers. 

 They know me. I know them. All outside are 

 dead to me. 



In April. 1858, Henry Youle Hind, of Toronto, was authorized by 



the provincial government of Canada to explore the region "lying to 



the west of Lake Winnipeg and Red River, and embraced (or nearly 



so) between the rivers Saskatchewan and Assiniboine, as far west as 



South Branch House on the former river." He was directed further 



to procure all the information in his power respect- 

 Hind's work in the ' L ' 

 Winnipeg Country, uig the geology, natural history, topography, and 



meteorology of the region. The work was accom- 

 plished between June 14 and October 31, the results being published 

 in 1859 in form of a thin quarto volume of 201 pages, with a colored 

 geological map, two plates of fossils, and other maps, figures, and sec- 

 tions. The region was described as occupied by Laurentian gneisses 

 to the east of Lake Winnipeg, succeeded to the west by Silurian, 

 Devonian, and Cretaceous formations. The Cretaceous fossils were 

 described by F. B. Meek and the Devonian and Silurian forms by 

 E. Billings. 



Hall's principal contribution to strictly physical geology was that 

 relating to the accumulation of sediments and the formation of moun- 

 tain chains. The first brief announcement of this was made in his 

 Hairs views on reports on the geology of Iowa, (p. 165). In 1857 he 

 M e ountain a BuUd & ini brought the matter before the public once more in his 

 1859 - address before the American Association for the 



Advancement of Science, at Montreal. This address was, however, 

 not printed at the time, and it was not until two years later that he 



