144 
GEOLOGY OF NORTH AMERICA. 
NOTE. 
28th March 1858. — I have just received vol. II and III of the quarto edition of the Reports of Ex- 
plorations and Surveys , for a Railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean , published by order 
of the Senate of the United States. Volume II, contains Captain Pope’s Exploration and a Report on 
the Geology of his route by W. P. Blake. My preliminary Report, .entitled : Geological Notes of a Survey 
of the country comprised between Preston , Red river, and El Paso, Rio Grande del Norte, published in the 
octavo edition, is omitted, although Capt. Pope quotes, page 36, my suggestions as to the practicability 
of boring Artesian wells on the Llano Estacado. Mr. Blake never quotes my Report , or gives my name, 
except in order to say that I am mistaken in finding on this road the New Red Sandstone and the Jurassic. 
I will say nothing about Mr. Blake’s objections and remarks; hoping that he has been more successful 
than myself, and that no mistake exists in his Report. 
Volume III , is devoted completely to Lieutenant A. W. Whipple’s Report of Explorations for a Railway 
route near the thirty-fifth parallel of North Latitude, and contains quite an extensive Report on the Geology of the 
Route. My name appears very often in the Geological part of this volume, and the use and abuse of 
it will impress at once every impartial reader. I have said already twice in the Introduction of this present 
work, and I repeat here again: That 1 decline all responsibility as to the use that has been made by W. 
P. Blake , J. Hall , and A. A. Humphreys of my official note-books and specimens , which for me have no exis- 
tence whatever. 1 do not recognize a single phrase or word of the Geology by Blake and Paleontology 
by Hall as my own-, and more, 1 do not recognize as my work the: Rdsume and Field Notes, by Jules 
Marcou , Geologist and Alining' Engineer to the Expedition ; with an English Translation by W. P. Blake. 
The only part of vol. Ill that I consider as my production, is the Resume of a Geological Reconnaissance, 
extending from NapoUon, at the Junction of the Arkansas with the Mississippi, to the Pueblo de los Angeles 
in California', pages 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, and 171; and the different quotations taken from 
that Resume of a Geol. Bee. , by Whipple and Blake. 
Mr. Blake has done his best to nullify and deny all my discoveries on this Survey. I will say no- 
thing more to defend myself, and I hope that Mr. Blake is satisfied with his own w'ork. I desire heartily 
that his voluminous Report may be of more service to the progress of science, and give abetter know- 
ledge of the Geology of the Expedition of which I was the Geologist, than my concise Resume and my 
other works on the subject; but I bog all Geologists, personal friends or others, not to confound my 
observations with Mr. Blake's opinions and comments on their value , and to judge impartially if I am to 
be blamed for what I have done. 
In these volumes nothing is said as to my withdrawal from the publication of the Geology of Whipple s 
and Pope’s Explorations; this delicate subject was wisely avoided by every one, in order to cover the 
abuse of authority of Jefferson Davis , which Avas the cause of my resignation. 
