J- ^^ [Sept. 17, 



In fine, be was an example of those rare individuals who, inspired by a 

 true love of knowledge, pursue it according to tbeir ability, without think- 

 ing of pecuniary reward or personal approbation. Such are the men who 

 furnish the germs for future advancement in the realms of thought. Happy 

 are those who are able to number them among their friends. 



A communication was presented, entitled "Notes on the 

 Cumberland or Potomac Coal Basin, by Howard Grant 

 Jones, M. S." 



Mr. Lesley drew attention to a remarkable feature of the section accom- 

 panying this paper, according to which both the Mountain limestone and 

 the Mauch Chunk red shale formations are duplicated, and that upon a 

 grand scale ; the Upper red shale being 375 feet thick ; the Upper limestone 

 301' (followed by 70' of gray shale); the Lower red shale 2000'; and the 

 Lower limestone 475' (underlaid by shale, flints and iron ore, 300'); making 

 the total appai-ent thickness of N, XI (counting in 200' of green shales 

 over the Upper red shale) between 3700' and 3800', a thickness even 

 greater than at Pottsville in Schuylkill county. Pa. The duplication of the 

 limestone formation in the column ought to have an important bearing 

 upon the sub division of the sub-carboniferous limestone group in the 

 AVestern States. It may help to explain some of the prevailing confusion 

 respecting the limestones exposed at apparently different horizons in 

 Northern Pennsylvania. 



Mr. Lesley proposed another Greco-Egyptian etymology, 

 viz : Ia.y.y<>q from [Hor-m-] a/u, the Sphinx name of the Solar 

 disc on the horizon. 



He remarked that la/.yoq, was the well-known Sun-god of the Eleusinian 

 Mysteries, represented as suckled by Ceres ; as Horus is frequently repre- 

 sented in the act of sucking the breast of Isis. The torch-flinging perform- 

 ance along the road from Athens to Eleusis represented no doubt the west- 

 ward progress of the morning light. 



Ceres was the mother of mystery, the darkness out of which the Sun is 

 born, and the underground concealment out of which all vegetable life 

 springs forth. Her name must be connected with the mj^stical Celtic word 

 CtE?', the root of so large a mythical nomenclature ; tlie equivalent of the 

 full oriental form Cabar (or Cabal), and the key to the later Cabala. Hun- 

 dreds of geographical names like Corinth, Carinthia, &c., embody it very 

 plainly. 



The destruction o? lay.yoi; by the Titans, as well as their destruction bj' 

 Zeus, are myths explainable by the obstruction of the Sun's rays by moun- 

 tains, and the victory of the Sun at the zenith. The part played by moun- 

 tains in Solar mythology is shown by the ideograph of the name of the 

 Sphinx, Hor-m-a,iu ; and is illustrated by the morning admiration of trav- 

 elers on the Nile. It is much better to seek for the primitive ideas among 

 the every-day phenomena of naiure, than among the poetical and metaphysi- 



