264 The American Geologist. April, isosr 
Prof. Worthen in the Illinois report speaks of this sandstone as 
the St. Peter's. Its position here and at other places just named 
is the same with reference to adjacent beds and it is also white 
and friable. I have also seen it occupying the same position 
and presenting the same characters at St. Paul, 3Iinnesota, where 
it is known as the St. Peter's sandstone. 
During their work, the members of the first geological survey 
of Missouri were taught to be careful and to observe closely, to 
note ever}' character pertaining to a bed or a formation. It was 
a school in which to make good stratigraphic geologists. We 
were directed to note ever}' feature — to collect every fossil, and 
where fossils were wanting to correlate as nearly as possible, ta 
follow a known stratum or bed and correlate it as we would pass 
along. Constant practice of this kind made good workers, and in 
time made rapid workers. We did not wait for some other man 
to note different features, one man to collect a rock, another a 
fossil, another a mineral, another to measure, but each man felt 
it incumbent to do that work himself. In that, and no other way 
can a man become a good stratigraphical geologist. The student 
of Archaean rocks often has not so much to guide him, yet he 
maj* find the older and newer rocks. In our work we noted all 
characters and found some fossils. The fossils of coui-se are 
the most important aids. 
In the well at the insane asylum the material was brought up 
in a pounded condition, and although the divisions of strata could 
not be so sharply defined as in the cores brought up by a diamond 
drill, still it was possible to identify strata. In this study one of 
my keys was the white sandstone at about 1,4:00 feet from the 
surface, and it was easily recognized, for its character was similar 
and the thickness was 133 feet just the same as measured at the 
outcrop near Augusta 85 miles distant. The overlying materials 
also approximately agreed in character and thickness. So the 
identification was satisfactory. The well penetrated the palaeozoic 
rocks 3,843 feet, beginning in Lower Coal Measures and reaching 
probably to granite. The lower l^eds were of coarse brown sand- 
stone. 
The Second Sandstone. 
Near the mouth of the Osage we have over 150 feet of second 
]Magnesian limestone which includes a few thin layers of white sand- 
stone. On the Osage at the mouth of Lake Branch the second 
