November 13, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



707 



that the geologists of the respective districts 

 should each have the fullest possible repre- 

 sentation of different parts of these forma- 

 tions, to the one the lower, to the other the 

 upper part. To the Fourth District was 

 given a single full section of the rock series 

 from Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania 

 line by including within it the counties of 

 Niagara and Erie. 



The division was certainly a philosophi- 

 cal one with the knowledge then at hand, 

 but the geologists of this part of the State, 

 Vanuxem and Conrad, had found, from their 

 first season's work, the disadvantages of in- 

 dependent observation in an unknown field, 

 and the importance of opportunities for 

 comparison of results from difierent meridi- 

 onal sections of the same formations. 

 Moreover, Conrad, who had been assigned 

 to the Third District, which covered an area 

 richer far than any other in the State in ex- 

 tinct organisms of beautiful preservation, 

 had become enamoured of them. A zoolo- 

 gist before he was a geologist, his own 

 preferences were consulted when, upon 

 recommendation of the geologists, he re- 

 tired from the field to become the Paleonto- 

 logist of the Survey. 



Conrad thereafter became the fifth wheel 

 of the geological equipage ; it could not 

 turn without him ; but when the work was 

 done according to the statutory require- 

 ments he felt that his part of it was hardly 

 begun. As he left for Philadelphia with 

 the remark, '' If I were to work a hundred 

 years I could not describe the fossils of 

 New York," he left behind a magnificent 

 opportunity. 



Dr. Emmons, also, was not wholly satis- 

 fied with the boundary of his district, and 

 wished to have Jefierson county included 

 within it. Thus at the opening of the sea- 

 son of 1837, the First District alone retained 

 its original extent, Lieut. Mather in charge. 

 Emmons's district (the Second) was en- 

 larged by the addition of Jefferson county, 



the Third and Fourth Districts were re- 

 modeled by dividing them with a north 

 and south line passing through Cayuga 

 lake, observing county lines, except in the 

 case of Tompkins county, which was cut 

 nearly in half. Vanuxem, who had the 

 previous season been in charge of the old 

 Fourth District, was transferred to the new 

 Third, and Mr. James Hall, former Assist- 

 ant Geologist, was made Chief Geologist in 

 charge of the new Fourth District. 



Mr. Hall was then a young man, just 

 past his twenty-fifth year, a very young 

 man for so responsible an undertaking, and, 

 as I have often heard him say, he was not 

 allowed to forget the fact. Between this 

 young man and the new conditions by 

 which he was surrounded there was a 

 happy adjustment that led to the produc- 

 tion of the exhaustive and superb report on 

 the Fourth Geological District, a work 

 which, in philosophical treatment, in con- 

 tent and in its influence upon geological 

 science has but few equals among works of 

 this character. 



The merit of this report must not be as- 

 cribed, to any large degree, to the simplicity 

 of its subject. It had, indeed, so happened 

 that the geological structure of this divi- 

 sion of the State was the least complicated 

 of them all. It presented no obscure prob- 

 lems of succession, no crustal disturbances, 

 no intricate topography. From bottom to 

 top the formations follow with the regular- 

 ity of tiles upon a roof ; the water courses, 

 the lake basins, the sculpturing of the high- 

 lands, all evidence the most uniform sub- 

 mission to fundamental law; indeed, it 

 would be difficult to find another region of 

 equal extent upon these older rocks from 

 which nature has so unequivocally banished 

 all complicated problems. 



The simplicity of the problems undoubt- 

 edly rendered the results more easy of ac- 

 quisition and left to the distinguished chief 

 more abundant opportunity for the accumu- 



