
          backed in aid of such a plan. I intend hereafter to
tell the fellows to send you things and correspond with
you at their own expense. I can give them good reasons
for it, and satisfactory ones. Now will you drive at 
this subject? Next comes myself. I have now
ascertained, to my full satisfaction, that I am
the only person in North America, capable of judging
of rock strata. Silliman does not know how
to dis=tinguish the [?] red sandstone from the more recent
(breccia), nor puddingstone from breccia,
nor greyrocks from greystone trap. As he  [?]
[?] [?], committed most horrible mistakes in all
these cases. On the whole he is no geologist at all,
neither do I know one. McClure is much the 
best I know if. His book is a heterogeneous thing;
but I can find a better application to facts in
his book than in all american works. No person ought
to write a syllable on geology, until he has seen the
rock he speaks of in fifty or a hundred localities
and compared all its various appearances and the various
[?] [?] in it. I could astonish you beyond
measure by carrying you to various parts of the 
same continuous unbroken layer of [grayvac?]. or
[acgillite?]. But after becoming familiar with such
layers you would perceive [crossed out: ?] characteristic
uniformity where you could not at first have
expected any thing but confusion. Infallible characteristics
are daily presenting themselves, where they were
not expected. I am [purchasing?] an essay upon some of 
the rocks near the west line of Massachussets, which
I think I shall send to Silliman, though he is totally incompetent
to judge of its merit. I think you may set down
as a characteristic of transition [added: [metashiferous?]] limestone that it
is every where traversed by veins of calcareous [?]. Whereas
primitive [added: granular] limestone is never traversed by such veins I
have lately reviewed the transition limestone referred to in my
book for 30 miles in extent, and shall cross the range in
two new places within a month. I have come to a full determination
to drive at geology in my own way. When
I [crossed out: ?] [added: detect] an error [added: of my own] I will publish it, [?] who will
laugh. And I will yield to no authority whatever, until
I see the proof. I know this is talking in an arrogant
strain, be it so, I shall so proceed though I shall
not talk of myself so largely excepting to you, because
it is not fashionable.

Amos Eaton.

        