Biographical Sketch of the late John Evans,M.D. 317 
influence with the celestial powers, and to this superstition, un- 
doubtedly, he owed his life in his adventurous travels, amid the 
war paths of hostile Indians. He was informed that all the 
chiefs of the tribes west of the Rocky Mountains knew him; for 
they have a way of telegraphing intelligence to great distances, 
without the aid of electricity. Dr. Evans's sextant, on one occa- 
thickness of the beds being 734 feet, while their mean thickness 
was not far from four or five feet. Six of the beds, he states, 
are so contiguous one over the other as to be mined together in 
a thickness of clear coal of thirty feet. ; 
Such a deposit, of good coals, was of vast importance to the 
enterprise then in contemplation, of opening a new route across 
the Isthmus to the Pacific Ocean—a project which we trust will 
be revived, when the unhappy war in which the country is now 
engaged shall be brought to an end. 
ese coals, analyzed by the writer, were found to be of ex- 
cellent quality, and suitable for all the uses to which good bitu- 
Minous coals are applied. These Tertiary coals undoubtedly 
Contain succinic acid, for they give out the nt odor of 
burning amber when heated. They differ from the lignites of 
northern Tertiary beds entirely, and seem to point to a condition 
of things such as must have existed during the older and regular 
