yi APPENDIX. 



feet in thickness; the next day he finds a limestone, measures it 

 and it is a hundred and one feet in thickness. He returns and 

 reports, and his report has the same value as that of the zoolo- 

 gist who went into the woods and found an animal with four legs 

 and a tail, and the tail was four inches long as determined by 

 careful estimation or barometric measurement. But the thick- 

 ness of the limestone or the length of the animal's tail are facts 

 of very little value except as related to those of greater signifi- 

 cance. 



The geological report which has no reference to geological 

 structure is dreary reading, and less interesting as a recreation 

 than a table of logarithms ; while the latter has a logical arrange- 

 ment and may serve some important purpose, and the student 

 may find a meaning in the figures, the former is purposeless and 

 meaningless. Some of our geological literature could be burned 

 and no harm done. that a pope would rise and a holy catho- 

 lic church of geologists — a pope with will to issue a bull for the J 

 burning of all geological literature unsanctified by geological 

 meaning. Then there would remain the writings of those inspired 

 with the knowledge that a mountain has structure, that every hill 

 has an appointed place and every river runs in a channel foreor- 

 dained by earth's evolution, and Marvine's work would be a book 

 of genesis in the bible of the geological priesthood. To those 

 members of the Society who have not made a special study of 

 American geology and its literature, this statement may seem an 

 exaggerated panegyric ; but let him wade by months and years 

 of study through the volumes of valueless records by which geo- 

 logical literature is encumbered and then take up Marvine's paper 

 on the Middle Park district and his appreciation will be meagre, 

 his enthusiasm cold if he does not exclaim that order has moved 

 on chaos. 



In his third chapter Mr. Marvine discusses the structure of the 

 great Colorado Range. Two great facts appear : first, that the 

 range is composed of metamorphic .schists and granites having a 

 detailed structure independent of the grand topographic forms 

 now existing, but related to a topography antecedent to the pre- 

 sent and which was buried by encroaching waters prior to the 

 upheaval of what we now know as the great Colorado Range ; 

 and, second, that the great orographic movements producing the 

 present grand features of the country brought up once more that 

 ancient and buried land ; and the present drainage system, deter- 

 mined by these later upheavals, while conforming to the later 

 structure, was superimposed on the earlier ; and his facts are 

 assembled in such manner in this chapter that his grand conclu- 

 sions are fully demonstrated. 



His fourth chapter is on the Middle Park proper. This is an 

 exceedingly complex piece of geology, and to propei'ly character- 

 ize the chapter it would be necessary to substantially reproduce 



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