featheestonhaugh's researches 163 



tinued by Dr. W. H. Dall, T. H. Aldriclt, and Gilbert D. Harris, but an 

 account of these later works falls outsitie the scope of the present paper. 



Eesearches of G. W. Featherstonhaugh 



In 1834-1835 G. W. Featherstonhaugh, as government geologist, made 

 a reconnaissance of the elevated country between the Missouri and Eed 

 rivers, which embraced the Ozark region of Arkansas and extended to the 

 present eastern border of Texas. His report (1835) on this trip has 

 mainly a historical interest. 



Lyell's Visits 



Sir Charles LyelPs two visits to the United States gave undoubtedly a 

 great stimulus to the study of geology in this country. On his first visit, 

 in 1841, he went as far south as Savannah, Georgia, but on the second 

 visit, 1845, he went west to New Orleans and thence up the Mississippi 

 Eiver to Memphis, Tennessee. 



From every important town on his route he made side excursions by 

 private conveyance, in this way making a fairly full reconnaissance of 

 much of the southern country. 



While in Tuscaloosa he was under the guidance of Professor Brumby, 

 then professor of chemistry, mineralogy/ and geology in the University 

 of Alabama. Professor Brumby had already made considerable study of 

 the geological formations about Tuscaloosa and was well qualified to point 

 out to Mr. Lyell the most important features. It was on the occasion of 

 an excursion into the coal regions to the northward of Tuscaloosa that the 

 party foregathered with Mr. David Boyd, an intelligent but independent 

 farmer, who was telling how he and his neighbors got coal by prying it 

 up from the bottom of the river and loading it by hand into boats. Mr. 

 Lyell contended that this was impossible, since coal was so easily eroded 

 that its outcrop in the bed of the river would be covered by other debris. 

 "I don't know how it is in the books," said the native, "but I'll be hanged 

 if it aint that way in the river." 



Inside the coffer dam around lock 17 on the Warrior Eiver, I saw last 

 summer in the rock-bottom of the river thus laid dry the outcrop of a 

 bed of coal crossing the river just as Mr. Boyd had described it. 



A method of getting coal to a market in those early days was to build 

 a barge on the river bank near a coal outcrop, load it with coal during the 

 summer and fall months, and when the river would rise after the winter 

 rains the barge would be floated off and piloted down the river, sometimes 

 as far as Mobile. But very often in going over the shoals above Tusca- 



