546 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



Newberry was succeeded as State geologist by Edward Orton, who 

 had previously acted as chief assistant. During Orton's administra- 

 tion certain "pardonable errors in identification," which left the stratig- 

 raphy of the coal series of Ohio in an almost hopeless 



Orton's Appointment x , „ , , , . ,. , 



as state (Geologist, tangle, were corrected. He showed the stratigraphical 

 order of the lower Coal Measures of Ohio to be com- 

 pletely in harmony with that of Pennsylvania and thiit the entire series 

 could be traced from the eastern margin of the State clear across the 

 same to Kentucky. This is regarded by White, Orton's biographer, 

 as the masterpiece of Doctor Orton's purely geological work, although 

 his contributions to the geology of petroleum and natural gas in the 

 sixth volume, 1888, are of almost equal importance. 



Orton's work during his whole life was largely of an economic char- 

 acter, the more important and comprehensive publications being Vol- 

 umes V (1884) and VI (1888) on the Economic Geology of Ohio, his 

 Report on Petroleum and Gas in Ohio (1890), and the Report on the 

 Occurrence of Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Asphalt Rock in West- 

 ern Kentucky (1891). He also had an important paper on the Trenton 

 limestone as a source of petroleum and inflammable gas in Ohio and 

 Indiana, in the Eighth Annual Report of the IT. S. Geological Survey 

 (1886-87). Aside from his record as president of the university and 

 a teacher, Orton will be best remembered for his work on the sub- 

 jects of gas and petroleum, although in his report on the third geo- 

 logical district he makes important observations on the Cincinnati 

 uplift or axis, showing it to have been a slow and gradual formation 

 resulting in a gentle flexure in the earth's crust involving the Lower 

 and Upper Silurian and, to some extent, the Devonian formations of 

 the State. In his own words, his conclusion's were as follows: 



First, the Cincinnati axis in southern Ohio was raised above the sea at the end of 

 the blue limestone period, or certainly early in the history of the Clinton epoch. 

 Second, it underwent various oscillations, but the elevatory movements succeeded 

 those of depression. Third, the rate of movement was exceedingly slow. 



His views on the glacial period, expressed briefly and in his own 

 words, were as follows: 



The following threefold divisions of glacial time may be considered as demon- 

 strated: First, an age of general elevation of northern land accompanied by intense 

 cold and the formation of extensive continental glaciers. Second, a general depres- 

 sion of the land with the return of a milder climate. Third, a partial reelevation 

 of the land and a partial return of the cold climate, producing local glaciers and 

 icebergs. 



Orton was born in Delaware County, New York, and educated at 

 Hamilton College, graduating in 1850. He subsequently studied 

 at Harvard and then entered the Andover Theological Seminary, 

 being licensed to preach in 1855, and soon after ordained as pastor 

 of the Presbyterian Church at Downsville, Delaware County, New 

 York. He resigned this position in order that he might accept that 



