276 
EDWIN JAMES 
him to appreciate so quickly the superior import of the then new 
paleontological principles advanced by William Smith, in England, 
that his stations on the Long Expedition are readily marked and 
located geologically by the fossils which he noted. Viewed at this 
angle his desultory and meaningless observations sometimes 
alleged acquire a fundamental significance, a modern interpreta¬ 
tion, and a fascinating interest. All of his observations are now 
easily adjusted to the most modern rock-scheme that we have. 
For his day and station Doctor James was by all odds the most 
strictly up-to-date student of earth science in America. Only 
Thomas Nuttall preceded him in adopting the then novel English 
methods of modern stratigraphic correlation. In this respect, 
however, James was specific and critical, where Nuttall was 
general and loose. By a full decade James antedated George 
Morton, Lardner Vanuxem and others of that early and famed 
New York coterie of fossils brethren that had taken up seriously 
and vigorously the study of ancient organic remains which they 
found entombed in the rocks of their native state. So important 
at this time were the relics of life regarded by James that he took 
particular pains to incorporate in his expedition narrative many 
descriptions of new species furnished him by Say. Neither 
Thomas Conrad, James Hall, or David Dale Owen had yet ap¬ 
peared upon the paleontological stage. As a co-pioneer of Nut¬ 
tall, James’ eflforts merit fullest consideration. His generaliza¬ 
tions belong to the generation that came after him, so far had 
he put forward the skirmish line. 
Doctor James’ most notable geological achievement was the ex¬ 
tension of McClure’s cross-section of the Forty-first parallel from 
the Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains. In that early day and 
across a primeval wilderness the construction of a rock-diagram 
representing a line 1500 miles long was a work of no small magni¬ 
tude. Crude as the results may appear at this enlightened day 
the wonderful absence of contracted structures largely obviated 
any serious errors which might have been otherwise included. 
A noteworthy feature brought out in the geological cross-section 
was the geotectonic simplicity of the continental interior which was 
composed of strata flat-lying and undisturbed except at the ends 
where they were sharply upturned. Thus early, though some¬ 
what faintly, perhaps, was suggested that basin-shaped character 
