562 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



Ozark and Cumberland highlands not having been eroded to its present 

 level. 



A sudden break in the lower portion of the barriers would, he 

 argued, produce the phenomena as now observed, namely, the action 

 of- violent currents plowing up and redepositing the material of the 

 more ancient formations, carrying down in the main channel rocks 

 of high northern derivation, restratifying and otherwise modifying 

 toward the end a good portion of the iceberg drift and, as the current 

 diminished, covering over the coarse material with the Orange sand. 



In 1873 W. C. Kerr, State geologist of North Carolina, published 



in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society a brief but 



suggestive paper on the possible influence of the earth's rotation on 



the deflection of rivers. He called attention to a fact 



Effects of Earth's so obvious as to have been evident to the common 



Rotation, 1873. . , . . 1 . . / ~ ... . 



people oi that State, that in both the Carolinas the 

 eastward flowing rivers always presented high banks and bluffs on the 

 south side and low plains and swamps on the north; also to the fact, 

 owing to these topographical conditions, that the large towns and main 

 roads were always on the south side also. 



In seeking for a cause for this Kerr rejected the slow subsidence 

 theory of Tuomey, and suggested that it was due rather to the rotation 

 of the earth, coacting with the force of the river currents, and called 

 in to sustain his opinions the law of motions as developed by Prof. 

 W. Ferrel: 



In whatever direction a body moves on the surface of the earth there is a force 

 arising from the earth's rotation which deflects it to the right in the northern, but 

 to the left in the southern hemisphere. 



Whether or not the application of this principle was original with 

 Kerr, it is of course impossible to say. This, however, seems to have 

 been its first application in America, though von Baer had suggested 

 as early as I860 like results in the case of north and south flowing 

 rivers, as the Irtisch and the Volga of Kussia. 



Kerr's final report on the geology of North Carolina, although pre- 

 sented in 1870, was not printed until 1875, owing to the parsimonious 

 action of the State legislature, the public printer being allowed finally 

 to set it up only under condition that the work be 

 caroifna.Tsjo 1 ° rth done in intervals of other work on the laws, docu- 

 ments, supreme, court reports, etc. 



The report was accompanied by a colored geological map and three 

 colored sections. The classification of the rocks adopted was as shown 

 on next page. 



