AMERICAN GEOLOGY DECADE OF 1870-1879. 585 



The fact is these English names are good for nothing in America and ought to 

 be ignored. If I were an expert in profanity, I should say damn the text-books, 

 Dana's, Le Conte's, and all of them. They are mere museums of embarrassments, 

 so far as classification is in question. * * * Fortunately Pennsylvania is a very 

 small corner of the United States, and I suppose it matters very little whether its 

 structure appears on your map or not. But in heaven's name (I mean the heaven 

 of geology), what do you gain by distinguishing a miserable subfonnation like the 

 Permian (one or two patches) and not distinguishing an enormous subfonnation 

 5,000 feet thick like the Subcarboniferous? « 



THE WORK OF F. V. HAYDEN AND F. B. MEEK. 



The reports of D. D. Owen and Dr. John Evans on the collections 



made b} T the latter in the mauvaises terres of the White River in 1849, 



as published in 1852, had attracted a great deal of attention, and in 



the spring of 1853 Dr. F. V. Hayden and F. B. Meek 



Havden and Meek 



in the Bad Lands, were employed by Prof, flames Hall to visit the Bad 



1853=1866. 5 i n • ,. ,. -i 



Lands to make collections oi fossils. 



The party met at St. Louis on Saturday. May 14, 1853, where they 

 found Dr. John Evans bent upon a similar errand under the direction 

 of Dr. B. F. Shumard. Leaving St. Louis, the party proceeded by 

 boat up the Missouri, reaching Fort Pierre— what is now the town of 

 Pierre, in South Dakota — Juno 21, whence they proceeded by wagon 

 into the Bad Lands proper. Here, in spite of the difficulty of holding 

 the party together through fear of hostile Indians, the}' remained for 

 a period of several weeks, returning to Fort Pierre on July 18. The} x 

 brought with them a large and valuable collection, including mam- 

 malian remains which were investigated by Dr. Joseph Leid}^. 



The Cretaceous invertebrate fossils were studied by Professors Hall 

 and Meek and described by them in a memoir published by the Amer- 

 ican Society of Arts and Sciences of Boston in 1854. This paper was 

 accompanied by a brief vertical section by Meek, showing the order of 

 superposition of the Cretaceous beds. As this is believed to be the 

 first section of the region, it is here reproduced in full: 



Section of the Members of the Cretaceous Formation as observed on the Missouri Hirer, 

 and thenci Westward to the Mauvaises Terres. 



Eocene Tertiary formation: 



Clays, sandstones, etc., containing remains of Mammalia. The entire thickness 

 of this formation in the Bad Lands is from 25 to 250 feet. 



«Someof Lesley's "digs" at his fellow-workers are masterpieces of their kind. 

 Thus in Volume I of his final report, where attempting to describe the chaotic condi- 

 tions existing on the earth during the earliest Archean times, and the intense chem- 

 ical activity incidental to the deluges of "sour rain" falling upon the hot surface, he 

 says (p. 53): "All this had taken place before the first age of which we have any 

 geological monuments and is only known to God and Dr. Sterry Hunt, who has 

 described it magnificently in his Chemical Researches." 



