584 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



strong contrast to the adjoining Azoic region of northern New Jersey. What little 

 white marble it possesses makes a narrow outcrop for a few miles along a single line. 

 Some serpentine rock, a little chrome iron, one large soapstone quarry, and some 

 kaolin deposits conclude the list of its Azoic minerals. 



Practically viewed, the geology of Pennsylvania is wholly Paleozoic, on the most 

 magnificent scale, with an unexampled wealth of anthracite and bituminous coal, 

 brown hematite iron ore, limestone, rock oil, and rock gas; and to the study and 

 description of these its geological survey has from first to last been devoted. 



Little attention has been paid to the lithological study of the building stones of the 

 State, or to their economic description. The entire State is a rock quarry. Every 

 known building stone from the granites, gneisses, quartzites, and traps, to hearth- 

 stones, flagstones, brownstone, and limestone can be got with ease and with infinite 

 abundance on lines of transportation. All the principal outcrops Of these building 

 stone formations have been located and their places in the Paleozoic series defined 

 in the reports, with sufficiently precise descriptions of their qualities and uses; but 

 beyond this the survey could not go. 



Lesley was born in Philadelphia in 1819, and graduated at the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania in 1838, becoming- almost immediately con- 

 nected with the State geological survey 

 under Rogers, in the capacity of topog- 

 rapher. In 1841. during 

 sketch of Lesley. the temporary suspension 

 of this work, he entered 

 upon the study of theology at Princeton, 

 and was licensed to preach in 1844. He 

 then went to Europe, where he studied in 

 the University of Halle during the winter 

 of 1844-45. 



Returning to America, he assumed the 

 pastorate of a Congregational church in 

 Milford, Massachusetts, but resigned in 

 1851 and owing, it is stated, to a change- 

 in his religious views, gave up the ministry 

 altogether. Returning to Philadelphia, he soon became secretary of 

 the Iron and Steel Association and of the American Philosophical 

 Society, and prominent in geological matters, particularly those relat- 

 ing to iron and coal. Had he so chosen, he could undoubtedly have 

 acquired a fortune, but, preferring science for science' sake, he put 

 aside all offers of private gain and remained poor, often desperately 

 so, to the end of his da}^s. 



He was a man of tall, lank, but commanding figure, and, according 

 to his biographer, of impressionable and emotional nature, an enthusi- 

 ast and optimist, but often lamentably melancholy, undemonstrative, 

 and even cynical. A man of tremendous nervous energy, aggressive 

 and outspoken, his writings are full of expressions which, for terse- 

 ness and unpolished emphasis, are unequaled. Thus, in a letter to 

 Powell relative to the coloring of maps and the names of the various 

 formations, he wrote: 



J. Peter Lesley. 



