PREFACE. 



able for enduring heat. There is another in a place nick - 

 named Fuddletown, in Onondaga county, of a cellular 

 texture, much used at Salina. The former should be call- 

 ed Pilfershire stone, and the latter Fuddletown stone, to be 

 equivalent, in absurdity, to Purbeck, Bagshot, and other 

 ridiculous European names. 



The distribution of strata mto Jive series, cannot be called 

 an innovation ; for it produces no change whatever. It 

 amounts to nothing more, than referring well established 

 strata one step further back, towards an elementary basis. 



Students, for whom this text-book is intended, may feel 

 no interest in Riiy thmg j)ersonal, relating to myself. But 

 I will throw this paragraph in their way. I have been ac- 

 cused of arrogance for stating facts relating to American 

 geolog}^, without formally bowing to European authorities. 

 I should condemn myself for an}^ step in the science, which 

 was not taken with a due consideration of all that had been 

 done in Euiope, Asia and Africa, in advance of our own in- 

 vestigations in point of time. Whoever is " first in the 

 field" of natural science, has an exclusive right to give 

 names. His successors should either adopt his names, or 

 give them as synonyms and equivalents. This is essential 

 to the very being of sciencCc But English and French ge- 

 ologists have introduced new names, not adopted in Ger- 

 many ; because new^ discoveries made them necessary/. I 

 have done the same thing in America, and for the same 

 reasoBSc 



I confess that this is a kind of ipse dixit" text-book. It 

 is so, because the plan does not admit of demonstration. In 

 a future pubhcation, I intend to cite authorities from na- 

 ture to illustrate my views. But I am prepared to abandon 

 any of them ; as I have frequently done heretofore, in caseg 

 of numerous errors, to which I am still subject. 



