Charles Thoina.s J<ickso}i. — Wooda-orlh . 79 
problems of geological succession which have since come to 
light in tins field, it must be admitted that the course pur- 
sued b}' Dr. Jackson in these state surveys was on the whole 
wisely chosen. To have attempted to make out a standard sec- 
tion with local names in accordance with the plan pursued in 
the neighboring states- of New York and Pennsylvania at this 
'time or a little later would have proved disastrous. It was in a 
later period and in other minds that there grew up in this reg- 
ion, while the schistose structure was still regarded as akin to 
stratification, a classification of rocks whose ruins have hardly 
yet been cleared away in the search for the true order of events 
in this field. Jackson in New Hampshire as in the other states 
studied by him was seemingly content with setting forth the 
economic facts of his discoveries, and on the whole the task of 
the modern geologist in New England is made the easier by 
Jackson having denied himself tlie Edenic privilege of giving 
names to things. The right man in the right place and at 
the right time may bring out a standard classification for a 
state, a country, a continent, or for the world. But an attempt- 
ed system of this character, failing of adoption, locks up vo- 
luminous and often valuable reports under the rusty keys of 
a cumbersome and unknown terminology. 
Though a laboratory'- habitue, Jackson was particularly at 
this period an active field worker, and allowed no trifling bar- 
rier to stand in the way of his field inquiries. It was in the 
progress of the New Hampshire survey that he dove to the 
bottom of a pond to find beneath the mud a deposit of iron 
ore whose presence was suspected there. This and other in- 
cidents of travel and simple adventure are written down in 
his report as interlarding to the te(^hnica,l results of his re- 
searches. 
In 1847. Jackson was appointed U. S. geologist to repf)rt up- 
on the public lands in the Lake Superior region. After spend- 
ing two field seasons in this work, he resigned, for reasons 
best known to himself and th(^ then unfriendly authorities in 
Washington. In the comi)an3^ of Hon. David Henshaw, ex- 
secretary of the Navy, he liad previously made a visit to this 
district while employed in the New Hampshire survey and 
found copper. He did his share in opening up this great cop- 
per region. There was incredulity in the East in regard to this 
