114 
GEOLOGY 
<1 fled me as to the greater geological antiquity of all our great horizontal western region than had 
« been given to it. This opinion was communicated to Professor Cleaveland , and was published 
« in Tke American Journal of Science and Arts, ~~ voi. XVI, p. 254 — for 1829. Since then , all other in— 
« formation collected of the parts examined, has only tended to strengthen my conviction of their 
elransilion characters.® 
Four years after, George E. Hayes of Buffalo recognized the correctness of Vanuxem’s views, 
and in his Remarks on the Geology of Western New York, he says: «I cannot resist the conclusion, 
« that all these rocks are older than the Secondary formation , and owe their origin to that train 
«of causes, whatever they were, that produced the Transition rocks. y> (See; Silliman’s Journal, 
vol. XXXI, page 242; New Haven, 1837.) 
Some years later, Vanuxem, together with Conrad, Emmons, and Mather, classed in detail 
all the Paleozoic or Transition strata of the State of New York; hut I will speak of this, in con- 
nexion with the Geological Survey of New Y'ork. 
The Old Red Sandstone was not recognized with certitude in America until later than 1831 , and 
Richard Cowling Taylor , a pupil of the celebrated « Strata Smith » , w^as the first to point out the 
true position of the Old Red Sandstone of Pennsylvania , underlying the Coal Measures. (See : On the 
Carboniferous series of the United States of North America , as to the actual position of the Old Red Sand- 
stone in America. — Philosophical Magazine. London.) 
The Carboniferous rocks have been studied chiefly by Eaton, Hitchcock, Silliman, Hildreth, 
and Taylor, ') who from 1825 to 35 published numerous and important documents on the Coal 
Measures of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Since then many geologists have studied this gigantic American 
formation, and the labors of Captain Bayfield, in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; 
Richard Brown, in Cape Breton Island; Dawson, in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; Gesner 
and Logan, in New Brunswick; Hitchcock and Jackson, in Massachussets and Rhode Island; Henry 
Rogers and Lesley, in Pennsylvania; William Rogers, in Virginia; D. D. Owen, in Illinois, In- 
diana, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky; Troost and Salford, in Tennessee; Tuomey, in Alabama; Swal- 
low and Shumard, in Missouri and Arkansas; etc., are too well known to need further mention. 
The Jurassic formation is the last of the principal geological groups that has been found in 
the United States; see what is said of its discovery, pages 17, 18, and 19 of this work. 
Geology is so w^ell considered and appreciated in North America, that the Civil Authorities of 
the States and Provinces, and even the Federal Government, have instituted Geological Surveys. The 
first one was undertaken by North Carolina, in 1824 and 25, and was under the charge of Prof. 
Olmsted. Since then almost all the States, Territories, and the British Provinces, have organized 
surveys, some of which are completed, and others are still in the course of execution. The two 
most remarkable, both for their results and the difficulties surmounted, are : the Geological Survey of 
1) Richard Cowling Taylor was born at Hinton, Suffolk, England, 18"' Jan, 1789; he was a pro- 
minent mining engineer, and had the good fortune to be engaged in some engineering with the Father 
of English Geology, William Smith. Taylor went to reside in the United States, near the year 1829, and 
until his death at Philadelphia, in 1851; he was occupied especially in Coal mining. The chief work 
of R. C. Taylor is his celebrated ^Statistics of Coal'-'- , published in 1848, which has become a standard 
work of reference. 
