OF NOimi AMERICA. 
121 
considered as decisive for the principal sections and the grouping of the American Paleozoic rocks, 
de Verneuil has accomplished for this part of geology what Lyell had done, in 1842, for the clas- 
sification of the Tertiary rocks bordering the Atlantic. 
Paleontology has been very successfully cultivated in America; the first who devoted themselves 
to this science were, Lesueur, Harlan, Jefferson, Say, Green, Bigsby, Rafinesque, Troost, Mor- 
ton, Redfield, Lea, and Hitchcock; hut Conrad has contributed more than any to the development 
of American paleontology. An excellent zoologist as well as a good geologist, Conrad has very 
well described a great many of the fossil mollusca of the New World. After having passed se- 
veral years in the careful study of the Paleozoic fossils of the State of New York, ill 
health obliged him unfortunately to abandon his work, and another, who is not at all his equal 
in learning, has succeeded him. Leidy is, next to Conrad, the best paleontologist in the United 
States, and his memoirs on the fossil Vertebratse has caused him to be justly called the Richard 
Owen of America. The young paleontologists of the present day are numerous, and the most pro- 
minent are, Dr. Shumard, Holmes, Newberry, Meek, Wyman, Billing, etc. 
The Paleontology of the State of lYete York, by James Hall, of which two volumes have already 
appeared , is a very useful work , but the determination and description of species are not very 
satisfactory; compared with publications of the same nature, such as the beautiful memoirs of Bar- 
rande, de Koninck, M"^ Coy, Milne Edwards and Jules Haime, de Verneuil, Sandberger, Angevin, 
etc., the Paleontology of New York appears quite inferior, — the best part of it being the plates drawn 
by Mrs. Hall, and also the geological order. 
In terminating this Synopsis of the Progress of American Geology, 1 repeat that my design was not 
to give a complete history, but only some land marks, by citing the exact dates of discoveries, and 
attributing them to their true authors. Maclure, Vaniixem, Hitchcock, Taylor, Conrad, 
Emmons, Lyell, de Verneuil, and David Dale Owen, are the only discoverers; other geo- 
logists have extended and detailed the just views and grand ideas that these illustrious savants 
were the first to divulge. 
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