EDWIN JAMES 
279 
the members of the learned societies of European Capitals, or had 
he had the foresight to publish his fundamental results and conclu¬ 
sions in the transactions of some of the philosophical associations 
oi that day, instead of consigning them to a grave among the pages 
of worthless and little read government documents, his name might 
have been indited high among those of the founders of our science. 
But the American geologist was on a rapid military reconnais¬ 
sance where his time was not his own, on the other side of the 
earth from where the scientific conflict was raging, a thousand 
miles from nearest habitation, on the verge of starvation, and 
traversed only the bare margin of that vast and magnificant 
volcanic field which afterwards became known by the Spanish 
title of the Mesa de Maya in what was to become the southeastern 
part of the State of Colorado. All too late it is now known, it 
contained a key to the then very vexed problem which so disrupted 
geologic thought at the dawn of the last century. 
Starting out on his famous journey as ardent a Neptunist as 
Werner himself might have wished, he returned the most en¬ 
thusiastic Huttonian that the Western World ever produced. 
His conversion was instantaneous on entrance into those marvelous 
basaltic fields which gird the Spanish Peaks. The alertness of 
his mind, the keenness of his observational powers and the sound¬ 
ness of his scientific reasoning were never more brilliantly dis¬ 
played than at this time in the simple statements which he made 
on the enigmas which rose before him to be unravelled. The 
critical evidences which he then adduced found no better formula¬ 
tion by those w^ho came after him. 
Still calling these basalts by their old Wernerian title of the 
“Newest Floetz Trap Formation” he naively yet judiciously 
noted: 
We are not diposed to enter into any discussion concerning the 
origin of the trap rocks. The vulcanists and those who believe the 
trap formations to have been thrown up in a state of fusion from 
beneath the crust of the earth will have a ready explanation of the 
fact mentioned in our journal, namely, that pieces of charred wood 2 
were found inclosed in the sandstone underlying the formation in 
question. 
Though we sought in vain for some evidence that the rocks of this 
formation traversed the strata of sandstone in the manner of the 
whin [diabase] dikes of England, we are conscious that our examina- 
2 Lignite fragments. — Ed. 
