wiLLiAMBl JIENKY D. ROGERS. (J5 



In 1844 Beury I>. Rogers delivered the annual address before the 



association of geologists and naturalists at the meeting held in Wash- 

 ington, May, 1844. 



At that time the geological publications of the United States had 

 reached a stage of considerable perfection, the author remarked. 1 The 

 « Geology and Mineralogy of the State of New York " had been issued. 

 Reports on surveys covering the greater part of the Eastern States 

 of the Union had been published, furnishing information in regard to 

 the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Tertiary formations of this half of the 

 United States. In regard to the Paleozoic formations he said: 



From Lake Champlain, therefore, westward to the mouth of the Wisconsin River a 

 distance of at least 1,100 miles, and southward to Alabama, over a still larger and 

 very complicated tract, and throughout the entire triangular area included between 

 these limits, the boundaries of each of our Paleozoic Appalachian formations have 

 been determined and with very considerable precision. ' 



He and his brother had prepared a map of the United States, 14 feet 

 by 12 feet in size. This was apparently of the eastern part of the 

 United States. 3 



The paleontology of the Appalachian basin at this time had been 

 carried on by the researches of Messrs. Conrad, Emmons, and Hall, in 

 New York, and by Messrs. Hall, Owen, Troost, Locke, and Clapp, in 

 the Western States, until " fi ve hundred well characterized marine 

 fossils had been made known." The work of study and description was 

 pushed further, particularly by James Hall, liogers acknowledged, in 

 1844, that " the most elaborate classification of our Appalachian Paleo- 

 zoic strata hitherto is that of the New York geological survey." " It 

 embraces, under the title of the New York system, the entire body of 

 strata from the bottom of the lowest fossiliferous rocks to the base of 

 the Red sandstone of the Catskill Mountains." 



Although the Xew York geologists were acknowledged to have pro- 

 vided a valuable classification of these formations, the author did not 

 feel satisfied with recommending this for general adoption. He appreci- 

 ated the difficulties attaching to the application of local names to the 

 geological formations, and because of the necessity of a general nomen- 

 clature for rocks he gave an account in this address of a scheme of 

 grouping and naming the Paleozoic strata, which his brother, W. 13. 

 Rogers, and himself had been maturing during the last three years. 4 

 Their nomenclature was purely artificial. To quote he says : 



We propose to distribute the whole great body of strata, from the base already 

 designated to the top of the Coal Measures, in nine distinct series, the products of 

 as many great successive periods, and resorting to the analogy between these 

 periods and the nine natural intervals into which the day is conveniently divided 

 we have named them in ascending order, the Primal, the Matinal, Levant, Preme- 



1 Rogers, Henry D., on American geologyand present condition of geological research in the United, 

 8tatea. Am. Jour. Sci., vol. 47, 1844, pp. 137-161, 247, 278. 

 'Ibid, p. 140. 



•See p. 147. I find no evidence that it was published.— H. S. W. 

 4 Ibid,p. 154. 



Bull. 80 5 



