VII.
Observations on the Geology and Mineralogy of the Region embracing the Sources of the Mississippi River, and the Great Lake Basins, during the Expedition of 1820. Illustrated with Geological Profiles, and Numerous Diagrams and Views of Scenery. By Henry R. Schoolcraft, U. S. Geol. and Minera. Exp.
To the Hon. John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War.
Washington, April 2, 1822.
Sir: I have the honor, herewith, to submit the general report of my observations on the geology and mineralogy of the region visited by the recent expedition to the sources of the Mississippi River. I transmitted to the Department on the 6th of November, 1820, a report on the existence of Copper Mines in the Basin of Lake Superior, together with specimens of the native metal, which were politely taken charge of at Albany by General Stephen Van Rensselaer, M. C. Will it be consistent with the views of the Department to print these reports?
I have the honor to be, sir,
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.
REPLY.
War Department, April 6, 1822.
Sir: I have received your interesting report on the geology and mineralogy of that section of the western country embraced by the late expedition of Gov. Cass; and, although I have not had it in my power, as yet, to peruse it with attention, I will see you, at any time you please, on the subject of your letter respecting it.
I am, sir,
Respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
J. C. CALHOUN.
Mr. Henry R. Schoolcraft.
Albany, March, 1822.
Sir: Agreeably to your appointment as a member of the expedition to explore the sources of the Mississippi, by the way of the Lakes, I proceeded to join the party organized for that purpose at Detroit, by His Excellency Lewis Cass. Diurnal notes were kept of the changes in the geological features of the regions visited; of the mineralogy of the country; and of such facts as could be ascertained, with the means at command, to determine its general physical character and value.[ [209]
I have heretofore reported to you the facts and appearances which indicate the existence of the ores of copper, and of valuable deposits of copper in its native form, in the basin of Lake Superior—a point which constituted one of the primary objects to which my attention was called—and I now proceed to state such particulars in the topics confided to me as fell within my observation.
In generalizing the facts, it must be observed that the expedition had objects of a practical character relative to the number, disposition, and feelings to be learned respecting the Indian tribes; that the transit over large portions of the country was necessarily rapid; and that few opportunities of elaborate or long-continued observations occurred at any one point. The topography was committed to a gentleman who is every way qualified for that topic, who was well supplied with instruments, and who will do ample justice to that department. I make these remarks to prepare you for a class of observations which are necessarily technical, and quite imperfect, and to which it is felt that it will not be an easy task to impart a high degree of interest, whatever may have been the anticipations.
To prepare the mind to appreciate the account which I give of changes and developments in the physical structure of the country, it may be observed that the American continent has experienced some of the most striking mutations in its structure at and north of the great chain of lakes. That chain is itself rather the evidence of disruptions and upheavals of formations, which give its northern coasts, to some extent, the character of ancient—very ancient—volcanic areas of action. These lakes form—except Erie and Ontario—the general boundaries between the primitive and secondary strata. But, however striking this fact may, at particular localities, appear—such as at the Straits of St. Mary, of which the east and west shores are, geologically, of different construction—yet nothing in the grand phenomena of the whole region visited is so remarkable as the boulder stratum, which is spread, generally, from the north to the south. Some of the blocks of rock are enormous, and would seem to defy any known cause of removal from their parent beds; others are smaller, and have had their angles removed, and far the greater number of these transported boulders are quite smooth and rounded by the force of attrition. This drift stratum has been tossed and scattered from its northern latitudes over the surface of the limestones and sandstones of the south. It is mixed with the diluvial soils, in Michigan and elsewhere; but it is evident that, in its diffusion south, the heavier pieces have settled first, while comparatively minute boulders have been carried over or dropped in the plains and prairies of Ohio, Illinois, and more southerly regions. Nobody, with an eye to geology, can mistake the heavy boulder deposits which mark the southern shores of Huron, and become still more abundant on the St. Mary's, the shores of Lake Superior, and along the channels of the River St. Louis and the Upper Mississippi.
Lake Superior has been the central theatre of volcanic upheavals; but they must have operated at very remote periods, for there is not only no evidence of existing volcanic fires, but the heavy debris everywhere bespeaks long intervals of quietude, and slow elementary degradation. Some of the upheavals were made after the deposition of the sandstone rocks, which are, as at the foot of the Porcupine Mountains, raised up to stand nearly vertical; while other districts of the granitic rock, as at Granite Point, had been elevated before the deposition of the sandstone rock, which is accurately adjusted to its asperities, and remains quite horizontal.
The granitical series of strata, which is apparent in northern New York in the Kayaderasseras Mountains, and at the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, reappear on the north shores of Huron and Superior, underlie the bed of the latter, and rise up in the rough coast between the Chocolate River and Kewaiwenon, cross the Mississippi at the Petite Roche, above the Falls of St. Anthony, and put out spurs as low down as the source of the Fox, the St. Croix, and the head of the St. Peter's Rivers.
These glimpses of some of the leading points in the geological structure of the regions visited, will enable you to follow my details more understandingly. These details begin at Detroit. From this place the expedition passed, by water, along the southern shores of Lakes St. Clair, Huron, and Superior, to the Fond du Lac; thence, up the River St. Louis, to the Savanne summit. Thence we proceeded across the portage to Sandy Lake, which has an outlet into the Mississippi, and followed up the latter, through the lesser Lake Winnipek, to the entrance of the Turtle River, in Cass, or upper, Red Cedar Lake, which is laid down by Pike in north latitude 47° 42´ 40´´.[ [210] The state of the water was unfavorable to going higher.
From this point, which formed the terminus of the expedition, we descended the Mississippi, making portages around the Falls of Pekagama and St. Anthony, to Prairie du Chien. An excursion was made by me down the Mississippi to the mineral district of Dubuque. We ascended the Wisconsin, to the portage into the Fox River, and traced the latter down to its entrance into Green Bay. At this point, the expedition separated; a part proceeding north, through the bay, to Michilimackinac, and a part going south, along the west shores of Lake Michigan, to Chicago, the latitude of which is placed by Capt. Douglass in 41° 54´ 06´´. At this place, a further division took place. Dr. Wolcott, having reached his station, remained. Governor Cass proceeded across the peninsula of Michigan to Detroit on horseback, leaving Capt. Douglass and myself to complete the survey of Lake Michigan. We rejoined the northern party detached at Green Bay, under Mr. Trowbridge and Mr. Doty, at Michilimackinac; and, after repassing the southern coast of Lakes Huron and St. Clair, reached Detroit.
Topographically, a very wide expanse of wilderness country had been seen. The entire length of route computed to have been traversed, exceeds four thousand miles, in the course of which we had crossed nineteen portages, over which all the baggage and canoes were conveyed on the shoulders of men. We encountered actual resistance from the Indians at only one point.[ [211] I kept my journals continually before me, and had my pencil in hand every morning as soon as it was light enough to discern objects. I began my geological observations at Detroit.
This ancient city, founded by the French in 1701, stands upon an argillaceous stratum, which is divided, topographically, into an upper and lower bank. Wherever this clay has been examined by digging, it discloses pebbles of various species of rock, denoting it, as far as these extend at least, to be a part of the great drift stratum.
In digging a well near the old Council House, in the northeast part of the city, the top soil appeared to be less than two feet. The workmen then passed through a stratum of blue clay, of eight or ten feet, when they struck a vein of coarse sand, six or eight inches in thickness, through which the water entered profusely. The digging was carried through another bed of blue clay, twenty or twenty-two feet in depth, when the men reached a stratum of fine yellow sand, into which they dug three feet and stopped, having found sufficient water. The whole depth of the well is thirty-three feet. The water is clear and rapid. No vegetable or other remains were found, and but few primitive pebbles.
In another well, situated near the centre of the town, the depth of which is twelve feet, the top soil was found to be two feet and a half; then a bed of gravel, seven feet; a vein of blue clay, eight inches, and the residue a whitish-blue clay, very compact and hard; a copious supply of water having been found. The water is, however, slightly colored, and is of a quality called hard.
In some places, this clay drift yields balls of iron pyrites, which renders the water unpalatable. At what depth the rock would be struck, if the excavation were continued, can only be conjectured. A well has been dug, a short distance below the city, upwards of sixty feet, chiefly through clay and gravel, without reaching the rock; but abraded fragments of granite and hornblende rocks were thrown from the greatest depths.
The bed of the river opposite the city has been stated to consist of limestone rock, but without any proof or much probability. From the fact of its affording a good anchorage to vessels, I am inclined to think that it is wholly composed of clay and gravel.
Detroit Fluviatile Clay.—The argillaceous stratum of Detroit extends along both banks of the river to its head; passes around the shores of Lake St. Clair, and up the River St. Clair to Fort Gratiot—a distance of seventy miles. In this distance there are some moderate elevations and depressions in the surfaces of the soil, but no very striking changes in its general character and composition. The boulder stratum is prominent at Gros Point, at the foot of Lake St. Clair, where the shore exhibited some heavy blocks of granite, and other foreign rock.
St. Clair Flats of Plastic Clay.—At the mouth of the River St. Clair, the current is divided into several channels, and spread over a considerable tract of low ground, which is covered with grasses and aquatic plants. These channels have worn their way through beds of tough blue clay, called the flats, over which there is sometimes not over seven feet eight inches of water in the ship channel. They consequently form an impediment to commerce. The depth is, however, always increased in the spring season, when twelve inches more may be generally relied on. Frequently, during the droughts of summer, a change of wind, and its steady continuance for some time, will allow ships to pass without lighters. The permanent removal of this bar is, however, an object of national importance, which cannot but be felt, as the tonnage of the lakes increases.
Ancient Dune; A Buried Forest.—The principal spot where the lands, in the immediate vicinity of the water, assume any considerable or abrupt elevation, is included between Black River of the St. Clair and Lake Huron. Here the outlet of the lake, which is rapid, washes the base of a ridge, or ancient dune, elevated fifty or sixty feet above the water. Fort Gratiot occupies the upper part of this elevation. The lower part consists of the blue clay stratum, corresponding in character with that found in the wells of Detroit. It is overlaid by a deposit of sand, forming two-thirds of the entire height. This elevation is crowned with a light forest of oak and other species. At the line of junction between the sand and clay, a number of trees are seen to be horizontally imbedded, projecting their roots and trunks in a striking manner above the water. These trees, on inspection, are merely preserved, not petrified. They appear to have been exposed to view, in modern times, by the wearing away of the bank. Certainly, none of the old travellers mention them.
The mode of this formation may be clearly seen. Winds, at some ancient period, have been the agent of blowing the sands, as they were washed up by the lake, and redepositing them on part of a prostrated forest, resting directly on the clay stratum. The trees, thus buried in dry sand, have been preserved. In process of time, the river encroached upon these antique beds, exposing them to view. There are also antique fresh-water shells found in similar positions near this spot. No rock is, thus far, found in sitû in ascending the lakes. The old surface of the country is wholly of diluvial formation, except where it shows lake action.
Huron Coast from Fort Gratiot to Michilimackinac.—About two hundred and thirty miles lie stretched out between these two points. Lake Huron charms the eye, with the view of its freshness and oceanic expanse. But the entrance is without rock scenery, and the student of its geology must be a patient gleaner along its shores. Long coasts of sand and gravel extend before the eye, and they are surmounted, at a moderate elevation, with a dense foliage, which limits the view of its structure to a narrow line. Portions of this coast are heavily loaded with the primitive debris[ [212] from the North. These are found, in some places, in heavy masses, but all are more or less abraded, showing that they have been transported from their original beds. In one of these, I observed crystals of staurotide.
The first section of this coast reaches from Fort Gratiot to Point aux Barques, a distance of about seventy-five miles. Nearly midway lies the White Rock, a very large boulder of whitish-gray semi-crystalline limestone, lying off the shore about half a mile, in water of about one and a half fathom's depth. It is the effect of gulls lighting upon this rock, and not the intensity of the color of the stone, that has originated the name—which is a translation of the Roche Blanche of the older voyageurs. The Detroit clay-formation still characterizes the coast.
First Emergence of Rock, in place, above the Surface.—We are passing, in this section, along and near to the outcrop of the secondary strata of the peninsula, but these strata are covered with a heavy deposit of diluvial clays, sands, and pebble drift. The first emergence of fixed rocks, above the line of the drift, occurs after passing Elm Creek in the advance to Ship Point (Pointe aux Barques). It is a species of coarse gray, loosely compacted sandstone, in horizontal layers. This rock continues to characterize the coast to and around the Ship Point promontory into Saganaw Bay. It possesses a few fossil remains of corallines; but the rock is not of sufficient compactness and durability for architectural purposes. It is conjectured to be one of the outlying series of the coal measures, of which this coast exhibits, further on, other evidences.
Saganaw Bay.—The phenomena of this large body of water, which is some sixty miles long, appear to indicate an original rent in the stratification, having its centre of action very deep. If the peninsula of Michigan be likened to a huge fish's head, this bay may be considered as its open mouth. We crossed the inner bay from Point aux Chenes, where it is estimated to be twenty miles across.[ [213] The traverse is broken by an island, to which the Indians, with us, applied the name of Sha-wan-gunk.[ [214] It is composed of a dark-colored limestone, of dull and earthy fracture and compact structure. It presents broken and denuded edges at the water level. I observed in it nodular masses of chalcedony and calc. spar. The margin of the island bears fragments of the boulder stratum.
Highlands of Sauble.—On crossing the bay, these highlands present themselves to view in the distance. They are the north-eastern verge of the most elevated central strata of the peninsula. Their structure can only be inferred from the formations along the margin of the lake, extending by Thunder Bay and Presque Isle, and the Isles of Bois Blanc and Round Island to Michilimackinac. At Thunder Bay, the compact limestone of the Saganaw Islands reappears, and is constantly in sight from this point to Presque Isle. It exists in connection with bituminous shale, at an island in Thunder Bay. It is of a dark carbonaceous character on the main opposite Middle Island, at a point which is called by the Indians Sho-sho-ná-bi-kó-king, or Place of the Smooth Rock. I noticed at this point the cyathophyllum helianthoides in abundance, and easily detached them from the rock. The more compact portions of this formation in the approach to Presque Isle, disclosed the ammonite, two species of the gorgonia, and the fragment of a species of chambered shell, whose character is indeterminate.
Much of the coast was footed, as the winds were adverse, and its debris thus subjected to a careful scrutiny. Wherever the limestone was broken up or receded from the water, long lines of yellow beach-sand and lake-gravel, including members of the erratic block stratum, intervened. In some localities, local beds of iron sand occur.
Michilimackinac.[ [215]—The approach to this island was screened from our view by the woody shores and forests of Bois Blanc, an island of some twelve miles in length lying off the main land; and the view of it first burst upon us in the narrow channel between it and Round Island. It is a striking geological monument of mutations. Here the calcareous rock, which had before exhibited itself in low ledges along the shore is piled up in masses, which reach an extreme altitude of three hundred and twelve feet. About two hundred feet of this elevation is precipitous on its south, east, and west edge. A hundred feet or more is piled up on its centre, part rock and part soil, in a crowning shape. The highest part of this apex, which is surmounted by the ruins of Fort Holmes, consists of the drift stratum, among which are boulders of sienite, and other foreign rocks. A locality of these abraded boulder-rocks, near the Dousman farm, is worthy of a visit from all who take an interest in the phenomena of boulders dispersed over the continent. The fishermen represent the water around this island to be eighty fathoms in depth. Yet, across these waters, to the utmost altitude of the island, these blocks of foreign rock have been transported. No force capable of effecting this is now known. And the argument of their having been transported on cakes of ice, in the nascent periods of the globe, is rendered stronger by these appearances than any geological proofs which I have yet seen.
Distinctive Character of the Mackinac Limestone.—Nothing appears so completely to puzzle the observer as the first glance at this rock. It is different in appearance from the calcareous rocks, to which my attention has heretofore been called in Western New York, and in Missouri and Illinois. The difficulty is to find a point of comparison. I walked entirely around the island, partly in water, the northern shores being comparatively low. There appeared to be three layers. The first, which rises up from the depths of the lake, scarcely, if at all, reaches the water level. Upon this is superimposed a vesicular rock, of which the vesicles are filled with carbonate of lime in the state of agaric mineral. By exposure to the air, this substance readily decomposes, and assumes an almost limey whiteness, and sometimes a complete pulverulent state. The reticular, or vesicular lines, by which the mass is held together, are thus weakened, and large masses of the craggy parts fall, and assume the condition of debris at the water's edge. Some conditions of the reticulated filaments are covered with minute crystals of cal. spar; others of minutely crystallized quartz. There appear, at other localities, in low positions, layers of quartz in the condition of a coarse bluish, flinty, striped agate. The entire stratum appears to be a reproduced mass, which is plainly denoted, if I mistake not, by some imbedded masses of an elder lime-rock. The whole stratum is too shelly and fissured to be of value for economical purposes. It yields neither quicklime nor building stone.
Fort Mackinac is erected on the summit of this stratum. The two objects of curiosity, called the Arched Rock, and the point called Robinson's Folly, are evidences of this tendency of the cliffs to disintegration. The superior stratum which constitutes the nucleus of the Fort Holmes' summit, contains more silex, diffused throughout its structure. It is, however, of a loose, though hard and shelly character; and has, in the geological mutations of the island been chiefly demolished and washed away. The monumental mass of this period of demolition, called the Sugar Loaf, is a proof that it contained, either by its shape, or otherwise, a superior power of resisting these means of ancient prostration. Striking as it now appears, this is the simple story which it tells. Its apex is probably level, or nearly so, with the Fort Holmes's summit. Over the whole island, after these demolitions, the drift stratum was deposited.
The German geognosts apply the term mushelkalk, to this species of calcareous rock. It is, apparently, the magnesian limestone of English writers.
Ancient Water Lines.—Such marks appear on the most compact parts of the cliffs, denoting the water to have stood, during the ancient boundaries of the lake, at higher levels.
Lake Action.—It is known that strong currents set into the Straits of Michilimackinac, and out of it, from Lake Michigan, at this point. The fishermen, who set their nets at four hundred feet in the waters, often bring up, entangled in their nets, large compact masses of limestone, which have been fretted into a kind of lacework, by the rotatory motion of little pebbles and grains of sand, kept in perpetual motion by the water at the bottom of the lake.
Organic Impressions.—There are cast up among the lake debris of this island, casts of some species of orthocaratites, ammonites, and madrepores, which appear to be derived from the calcareous rocks in place in the basin of Lake Huron. But the rock strata of the island itself appear to be singularly destitute of these remains. The only species which I have noticed, is one that was thrown up from a well attempted to be dug, on the apex of Fort Holmes, by the British troops, while they held possession of the island in 1813, 1814, and 1815. But this is uniformly fragmentary. It has the precise appearance of the head of a trilobite, but never reveals the whole of the lateral lobes, nor any of the essential connecting parts. It is silicious.
Gyseus Formation.—Evidences of the extension of this formation to this vicinity were brought to my notice; in consequence of which I visited the St. Martin's Islands, which belong to the Mackinac group. Masses of gypsum were found imbedded in the soil, both of the fibrous and compact variety. These islands are low diluvial formations. Similar masses are found on Goose Island; and the mineral has been found at Point St. Ignace on the main land.
Taken in connection with the discovery of this mineral, at a subsequent part of the journey on Grand River, the indications of the series of the saline group of rocks, so prevalent in the Mississippi Valley, are quite clear up to this extreme point, which is, however, very near the northern verge of this group.
Honeycombed Rocks.—As evidences of existing lake action, it has already been mentioned that the fishermen bring up, from great depths in the straits, pieces of compact limestone, completely fretted and excavated by small pebbles, which are kept in motion by the strong currents which prevail at profound depths. The process of their formation by these currents is such, as in some instances to give the appearance of cellepores, and analogous forms of organic life. I have seen nothing in these carious forms which does not reveal the mechanical action of these waters.
Pseudomorphic Forms.—Amongst the limestone debris, of recent date, found on these shores, are pieces of rock which have an appearance as if they had been punctured with a lancet, or blade of a penknife. These incisions are numerous, and from their regularity, appear to have been moulded on some crystals which have subsequently decayed. Yet, there are difficulties in supposing such to have been the origin of these small angular orifices.
Whenever these masses are examined by obtaining a fresh fracture, they are found to consist of the compact gray and semi-granular rock of the inferior Mackinac group, but in no instance of the vesicular or silicious varieties. These blocks appear to be identical in character with the White Rock, before noticed.
North Shore of Lake Huron.—The next portion of the country examined was that of the north shores of the lake, extending from Michilimackinac to Point Detour, the west Cape of the Straits of St. Mary's, a distance computed to be forty miles. The calcareous rock, such as it appears in the inferior stratum of Mackinac, extends along this coast. The first three leagues of it, consist of an open traverse across an arm of the lake. Goose Island offers a shelter to the voyager, which is generally embraced. It consists of an accumulation of pebbles and boulders on a reef, with a light soil, resting on the lower limestone. It does not, perhaps, at any point, rise to an elevation of more than eight or ten feet above the water. Outard Point, a short league, or rather three miles further, exhibits the same underlying formation of rock, which is found wherever solid points put out into the lake, during the entire distance. The chain of islands called Chenos, extends about twenty miles, and affords shelter during storms to boatmen and canoemen, who are compelled to pass this coast. Large masses of the rock, with its angles quite entire, lie along parts of the shore, and appear to have been but recently detached. The intervals between these blocks and points of coast, are formed of the loose sand and pebbles of the lake, which are more or less affected by every tempest. The only organic remains and impressions are drift-specimens, which have been driven about by the waves, and are abraded. Broken valves of the anadonta, occasionally found in similar positions, denote that this species exists in the region, but that the outer localities of the coast are entirely unfavorable to their growth.
Drummond Island.—This island, now in the possession of British troops, who removed from Michilimackinac in 1816, is the western terminus of the Manatouline chain. We did not visit it, but learn from authentic sources, that it is a continuation of the nether Mackinac limestone—and that the locality abounds in loose petrifactions, which appear to have belonged to an upper stratum of the rock, now disrupted.[ [216]
Straits of St. Mary's.—These straits, and the river which falls into their head, connect Lakes Huron and Superior. They appear to occupy the ancient line of junction between the great calcareous and granitic series of rocks on the continent. The limestone, which has been noticed along the north shore of the Huron from Michilimackinac, and which continues, with interruptions of water only, from Detour to Drummond Island, and the Manatoulines, is to be noticed up the straits as high as Isle a la Crosse, where the last locality of a pure carbonate of lime appears to occur. The island of St. Joseph is chiefly primitive rock, and its south end is heavily loaded with granitic, porphyritic, and quartz boulders. The north shores of the river, opposite and above this island, are entirely of the granitic series, which continues to Gros Cape of Lake Superior. On reaching the Nebeesh,[ [217] or Sailor's Encampment Island, sandstone rocks of a red color present themselves, and are found also on the American side of the river, and continue to characterize it to the Falls, or Sault de Ste. Marie,[ [218] and to Point Iroquois and Isle Parisien in Lake Superior.
The Sault of St. Mary's is upon and over this red sandstone. The river makes several successive leaps, of a few feet at a time, in its central channel, falling, altogether, about twenty-two feet in half a mile. This gives it a foaming appearance, and the volume pours a heavy murmur on the ear.[ [219] It is, of course, a complete interruption to the navigation of vessels, which can, however, come to anchor near its foot, while barges may be pushed up, empty, on the American shore. The water-power created by such a change of level, is such as must commend the spot, at a future period, to manufacturers, lumbermen, and miners. The foot of these falls is heavily incumbered, both with masses of the disrupted sand-rock[ [220] and granitic and conglomerate boulders.
Red Sandstone of Lake Superior.—That this is the old red sandstone, may be inferred simply from the fact that, although deposited originally in horizontal beds, its position has been disturbed in many localities.
Plastic Clay Stratum of the Lakes.—The northern extremity of Muddy Lake—a sheet of water some twenty miles in length—is the head of the straits, and the beginning of the River St. Mary's. This sheet of water has the property of being rendered slightly whitish, or turbid, by continuous winds. Its bottom appears to be formed of the same plastic blue clay which obstructs the passage of vessels of large draft on the St. Clair flats, and forms an impediment of a similar kind in this river in Lake George. This stratum seems to be the result of causes not now in operation. If dredged through, or excavated, there is no reason to suppose it would again accumulate; for the waters of the lake are clear and pure, and carry down no deposit of the kind. These clay deposits remain to attest physical changes which are past. They denote the demolition of formations of slate in the upper regions, which have been broken down and washed away when the dominion of the waters was far more potential than they now are.
This formation is favorable to the growth of some species of fresh-water shells. I observed several species of the anadonta and the plenorbis, and think, from the broken valves, that research would develop others.
Porphyry and Conglomerate Boulders.—A formation of red jasper, in common white quartz, exists, in the bed of intersection, on the southeastern foot of Sugar Island. The fragments of jasper are of a bright vermil red, quite opaque, and have preserved their angles. I had observed fragments of the formation along the shores of the lower part of the straits, and even picked up some specimens, entirely abraded, however, on the south shores of the Huron, between the White Rock and Michilimackinac—a proof of the course of the drift.
The granitic conglomerates appear quite conclusive, one would think, of the results of fusion. The attraction of aggregation would seem inadequate to hold together such diverse masses. In these curious and striking masses we see the red feldspathic granite, black and shining hornblende rock, white fatty quartz, and striped jasper, held together as firmly, and polished by attrition as completely, as if they were—what they are not—the results of crystallization in this aggregate form.
Erratic Block Group.—Wherever, in fact, the geologist sets his foot, on the shores of the upper lakes, he finds himself on the great drift stratum, and cannot but revert to that era when waters, on a grander scale, swept over these plains, and the lakes played rampantly over wider areas.[ [221]
Basin of Lake Superior.—We entered this island sea as if by a kind of geological gate, in which the sandstone cliffs of Point Iroquois, on the one hand, stand opposite to the granitical hills of Gross Cape on the other.
In order to conceive of its geology, it may subserve the purposes of description to compare it to a vast basonic crater. The rim of this crater has been estimated, by Sir Alexander Mackenzie, at fifteen hundred miles. The primitive formations of Labrador and Hudson's Bay coasts come up, so as to form the eastern and northern sides of the rim, around which they stand in cliffs of sienitic greenstone and hornblendic rocks, in some places a thousand feet high. On its south and southwest shores, this formation of the elder class of rocks forms also a considerable portion of the coast; as in the rough tract of Granite Point, the Porcupine and Iron River Mountains, and the primitive tract west of Chegoimegon, or Lapointe. It will serve to denote the broken character of this rim, if we state that the entire plain of the lake, running against and fitting to this rim, was originally filled up with the red, gray, and mottled sandstone, which gave way and fell in at localities west of the great Keweena Peninsula, converting its bottom into an anteclinal axis.
Volcanic action, to which this disturbance in its westerly bearings may be attributed, appears to have thrown up the trap-rocks of the Pic, of the Porcupine chain, of the Isle Royal group, and other trap islands, and the long peninsula of Keweena. This system of forces appears to have spent itself from the northeast to the southwest. The shocks brought with them the elements of the copper and other metallic bodies which characterize the trap-rock. They exhausted their power, on the American side, west of the granitic tract of Chocolate and Dead Rivers, and the Totosh and Cradle-Top Mountains. The most violent disturbance took place at the west of the Keweena Peninsula, and thence it was propagated in the direction of the higher Ontonagon, the Iron, and the Montreal rivers.
This disturbance of the level of the sandstone produced undulations, which are observable on the St. Mary's, where the variation from a level is not more than eight or ten degrees. They left portions of it—as between Isle au Train and the Firesteel River—undisturbed; and they threw other portions of it—as between Iron and Montreal rivers—almost completely on their edges.
The entire north shore from Gargontwa to the old Grand Portage, inclusive of the Michepicotin and Pic regions, cannot be particularly alluded to, as that part of the coast was not visited; but the accounts of observers represent it as consisting of trap-rocks. Without the application of such forces, it appears impossible to understand the geology of this lake, or to account for the sectional and disturbed formations.
The lake itself, whose depth is great, and which has an extreme length of about 500 miles, by an extreme width of some 180, is endowed with powerful means of existing elemental action. This consists almost entirely of the force of its winds and long, sweeping waves. Its bottom may, in this light, be looked upon as an immense mortar or triturating apparatus, in which its sandstones, trap-boulders, and pebbles are driven about and comminuted. This power has greatly changed its configuration, and the process of these mutations is daily going on.
It is only by such a power of geological action that we can account for the powerful demolitions and inroads which it has made upon some parts of its southern borders. The coasts of the Pictured Rocks, which have a prominent development of about 12 to 15 miles, consist in horizontal strata of coarse gray sandstone, of little cohering power. The effect of waves beating upon rocks is to communicate a curved line. This has operated to excavate numerous and extensive caves into the coast. These, after reaching hundreds of feet, have in some cases united. The effect is to isolate portions of the coast, and to leave it in fearful pinnacles, having many of the architectural characters of Gothic or Doric ruins.
The portion of coast immediately west of Grand Marrais is scarcely less unique. It denotes the effect of the prostrating power of the lake in another way. The sandstone of parts of the coast, ground down into yellow sand by this vast machinery, is lifted up by the winds as soon as it reaches the point of dryness, and heaped up into vast dunes. Standing trees are buried in these tempests of sand, and its effect is, for about nine miles along the coast, to present, at an elevation of several hundred feet, a scene of arid desolation, which can only be equalled by the Arabic deserts.
A dyke of trap seems once to have extended from the north shore to Point Keweena; but, if so, it has been prostrated, and its contents—veins and deposits, silicious and metallic—scattered profusely around the shores of the lakes. A cause less general is hardly sufficient to account for the wide distribution of fragments of the copper veins and vein-stones which have so long been noticed as characters of this lake. The basal remains of this antique dyke form the peninsula of Keweena. The tempests beating against this barrier from the northwest, have ripped up terrific areas from the solid rock, and left its covering, amygdaloid and rubblestones, in fantastic patches upon the more solid parts, or constituting islands in front of them.
Structure of its Southern Coast.—The estimated distance from Sault Ste. Marie to Fond du Lac is a fraction over 500 miles. The sandstone, as it appears in the Falls of the St. Mary's, does not appear to be entirely level. It exhibits an undulation of about 8° or 10°, dipping to west-northwest. Two instances of this waved stratification of the Lake Superior sandstone deserve notice. The first terminates at the intersection of red sand rock at la Point des Grande Sables with the beginning of the horizontal strata of the Pictured Rocks. We again observe an inclination of the strata of a few degrees at Grand Island, which is moreingfish River, and appears to dip at Isle aux Trains, about twenty miles northeast. The scenery is peculiarly soft and pleasing in passing the Huron Islands, a granitic group, and directing the view, as in the sketch, to the coast and the rough granitical hills rising behind Huron Bay. The strata are level, as shown above, around the Bay of Presque Isle and Granite Point, and continue so, resting on the roots of the granitical tract of the Tötosh, or Schoolcraft, and Cradletop Mountains, and at Point aux Beignes, and Keweena Bay. This level position of the rock is preserved to the south cape of the shallow bay of the Bete Gre, on the north, at which the trap-dykes of the peninsula first begin; and so continues after passing that rugged coast of the vitreous series of that remarkable point, to and beyond Eagle River and Sandy Bay, in the approach to the portage of the Keweena.
The same horizontality is observed on the headland west of it, and upon all the points and headlands to Misery and Firesteel Rivers and the mouth of the Ontonagon. The trap-dyke of Keweena crosses this river about ten miles, in a direct line, inland.
At Iron River, we observe a stratum of compact gray grauwacke, over the hackly bed of which that river forces its way during the spring months, and stands in tanks and pools during the summer. On reaching the foot of the Porcupine Mountains, the sandstone, which is here of a dark chocolate color, with quartz pebbles of the bigness of a pigeon's egg, and organic remains of paleozoic type, is found to be tilted up into nearly a vertical position, as shown in the sketch. The grauwacke reappears, in a most striking manner, at the Falls of Presque Isle River, where the whole mass of water precipitated from the highlands drops into a vast pot-hole, a hundred feet wide and perhaps twice that depth. The whole upper series of rocks, from the Porcupine Cliffs west to the Montreal River, is a conglomerate. At the Falls of the Montreal, the river drops over the vertical edges of the red sandstone. Beyond the Bay of St. Chares, at Lapointe Chegoimigon, masses of sienitic mountains arise, which have their apex near La Riviere de Fromboise.
The Islands of the Twelve Apostles, or Federation Group, appear to be all based on the sienitic or trap, with overlying red sandstone; which latter again reappears on the point of the entrance into Fond du Lac Bay, and marks its southern coast, till near the entrance of the Brulé, or Misakoda River, as seen in the illustration beneath. Shores of sand then intercept its view to the entrance of the River St. Louis, and up its channel to its first rapids, about eighteen miles, where the red sandstone again appears, as the first series of the Cabotian Mountains.
Serpentine Rock.—At the nearest point north of Rivier du Mort is a headland of this rock, jutting out from the granitical formation. Lapping against it, at the mouth of the river, is a curious formation of magnesian breccia. The serpentine rock appears, in nearly every locality examined, to be highly charged with particles of chromate of iron. It may be expected to yield the usual magnesian minerals.[ [222] Its position is between the Carp River and Granite Point, in the Bay of Presque Isle, or rather Chocolate River, for that river pours into this bay by far the largest quantity of water.[ [223]
Ancient Drift-Stratum.—In the intervals between the points and headlands, where the rock formation is exposed by streams or gorges, the drift, or erratic boulder stratum, is found. Such is its position beneath the sand-dunes of the Grandes Sables, and in the elder plains and uplands, stretching with interruptions on the coast from the head of the Mary's valley to that of the St. Louis. The edge of this formation is composed of the sand and loose pebbles and boulders of the lake. Mighty as are the existing causes of action of the lake in beating down and disrupting strata of every kind, and in reproducing alluvial lands and dunes, they are weak and local when compared to the causes which have spread these ponderous boulders, and drift masses over latitudes and longitudes which appear to be limited only by the leading elevations of the continent. That oceanic torrents of water, suddenly heaped on the land, and wedged into compactness and power now unknown to it, is after all, the most plausible theory of the dispersion of this formation, and this theory avoids the necessary local one of the glacial dispersion which presupposes a very low temperature over the whole surface of the globe.
Kaugwudju.[ [224]—This imposing mass of the trap-rocks is the highest on the southern shores of Lake Superior. The following outlines of it are taken from a point on the approach to the Ontonagon River, about forty miles distant.
They rise to their apex about thirty miles west of that stream, in north lat. 46° 52´ 2´´, as observed by Captain Douglass. They are distant three hundred and fifty miles from St. Mary's. In a serene day they present a lofty outline, and were seen by us from the east, at the distance of about eighty miles. The Indians represent them to have a deep tarn, with very imposing perpendicular walls, at one of the highest points. If Lake Superior be estimated at six hundred and forty feet above the Atlantic, as my notes indicate, its peaks are higher than any estimates we have of the source of the Mississippi, and are, at least, the highest elevations on this part of the continent. The granitical tract of the St. Francis, Missouri,[ [225] and of the quartz high lands of Wachita, Arkansas, the only two known primitive elevations between the Rocky and Alleghany chains, are far less elevated.
I have now taken a rapid glance at the formations along the southern shore of the lake between St. Mary's and Fond du Lac; but have passed by some features which may be thought to merit attention.
Existing Lake Drift.—The gleaner among the rock debris of this lake has a field of labor which is not dissimilar to that of the fossilist. If he has not, so to say, to put joint to joint, to establish his conclusions, he has a mineralogical adjustment to make every way as obscure. A boulder of sienite, or a mass of sandstone, or grauwacke, may be easily referred to a contiguous rock. But when the observer meets with species which are apparently foreign to the region, he is placed in a dilemma between the toil of an impossible scrutiny and the danger of an unlicensed conjecture.
Among the more common masses which may be assigned a locality within the compass of the lake, are granites, sienites, hornblendes, greenstones, schists, traps, grauwackes, sandstones, porphyries, quartz rocks, serpentines, breccias, amygdaloids, amphiboles, and a variety of masses in which epidote and hornblende are essential constituents. With these, the coast mineralogist must associate, in place or out of place, agates, chalcedonies, carnelians, zeolite, prehnite, calcareous spar, crystalline quartz, amethystine quartz, coarse jaspers, noble serpentine, iron-sand, iron-glance, sulphate of lead, chromate of iron, native copper, carbonate of copper, and various species of pyrites. These were, at least, my principal rewards for about eighteen days' labor, in scrutinizing, at every possible point, its lengthened and varied coasts.
Cupreous Formation.—The whole region, above Grand Island at least, appears to have been the theatre of trap-dykes, and an extensive action from beneath, which brought to the surface the elements of the formation of copper veins. These have not been much explored; but, so far as observation goes, there are evidences which cannot be resisted, that the region contains this metal in various shapes and great abundance. I refer to my report of the 6th of November, 1820, for evidences of a valuable deposit of this metal in the valley of the Ontonagon River, and at other points. I found the metal in its native state at various other localities, and always under physical evidences which denoted its existence, in the geological column of the lake, in quantity. These indications were confined almost exclusively to the area intervening between the peninsula of Keweena, and La Pointe Chegoimegon, a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles. Of this district, the two extremities would make the Ontonagon Valley about the centre.[ [226] A profile of one of the detached pieces, found in the Ontonagon Valley, and forwarded to you by Mr. Van Rensselaer, is herewith given.
Vitric Boulders.—Among the debris of Lake Superior are masses of trachyte, and also small pieces of the sienitic series, in which the red feldspar has a calcined appearance, the quartz being, at the same time, converted into a perfectly vitreous texture. Similar productions, but not of the same exact character, exist on the sandy summits of the Grande Sable. These exhibit an exterior of glistening cells or orifices: it may be possible that they have been produced by fusion; but I think not. The smooth cells appear like grains of sand hurled by the winds over these bleak dunes. I have brought from that locality a single specimen of pitchstone, perfectly resinous, bleak and shining.
La Pointe Chegoimegon.—A sketch of these islands, as given in the Narrative, denotes that their number is greatly underrated, and will serve to show the configuration of a very marked part of the Superior coast. It must, hereafter, become one of the principal harbors and anchoring-ground for vessels of the lake.
Valley of the St. Louis River.—The St. Louis River takes its rise on the southern side of the Hauteur des Terres, being the same formation of the drift and erratic block stratum which gives origin, at a more westerly point, to the Mississippi. Its tributaries lie northwest of the Rainy Lakes. Vermilion Lake, a well-known point of Indian trade, is a tributary to its volume, which is large, and its outlet rushes with a great impetus to the lake. At what height its sources lie above Lake Superior, we can only conjecture. It was estimated to have a fall of two hundred and nine feet to the head of the Portage aux Coteaux, and may have a similar rise above.
By far its most distinguishing feature is its passage at the Grand Portage through the Cabotian Mountains. We entered it at Fond du Lac and pursued up its channel through alluvial grounds, in which it winds with a deep channel about nineteen or twenty miles to the foot of its first rapids. This point was found one mile above the station of the American Fur Company's trading-house. Here we encountered the first rock stratum, in the shape of our old geological acquaintance, the old red sandstone of Lake Superior. It was succeeded in the first sixteen miles, in the course of which the river is estimated to fall two hundred feet—most of it in the first twenty-nine miles—by trap, argillite, and grauwacke. Through these barriers the water forces its way, producing a series of rapids and falls which the observer often beholds with amazement. The river is continually in a foam for nine miles, and the wonder is that such a furious and heavy volume of water should not have prostrated everything before it. The sandstone, grauwacke, and the argillite, the latter of which stands on its edges, have opposed but a feeble barrier; but the trap species, resisting with the firmness, as it has the color of cast-iron, stand in masses which threaten the life and safety of everything which may be hurled against them. I found a loose specimen of sulphuret of lead and some common quartz in place in the slate rock, a vein of clorite slate, and a locality of coarse graphite, to reward my search.
The Portage aux Coteaux, which is over the basetting edges of the argillite, will give a lively idea of the effects of this rock upon the feet of the loaded voyageurs.
The sandstone is last seen near the Galley on the Nine Mile Portage. Above the Knife Portage, some eight miles higher, vast black boulders of hornblendic and basaltic blocks, are more frequent; and these masses are observed to be more angular in their shapes than the boulders and blocks of kindred character encountered on the shores of Lakes Superior and Huron. There is a vast sphagnous formation, which spreads westwardly from the head of the Coteau Portage, and gives rise to the remote tributaries of Milles lac and Rum River. Much of this consists of what the Indians term muskeeg, or elastic bog. Hurricanes and tempests have made fearful inroads upon areas of its timber, and it is seldom crossed, even by the Indians. This tract lies east of the summit of sand-hills and drift, which environ Sandy Lake, the Komtaguma of the Chippewas. The portage of the Savanna River, a tributary of the St. Louis, is the route pursued by persons with canoes; there is no other species of water craft adapted to this navigation. But wherever crossed, this swamp-land tract imposes labor and toil which are of no ordinary cast. It is the equivalent of the argillite which has been broken down and disintegrated, forming beds of clay soil which are impervious to the water, and we way regard this ancient slate formation of the true source of the St. Lawrence tributaries, as the remote origin of those extensive beds of an argillaceous kind, which exist at many places in the lower lakes and plains.
Immediately west of the Savanna Portage, the Komtaguma summit is reached. This summit consists wholly of arid pebble and boulder drift of the elder period. It exhibits evidences of broken-down amygdaloids, which not only furnish a part of its pebbles, but also of the contents of this stratum, in numerous agates and other subspecies of the quartz family which are found scattered over the surface. This is, in fact, the origin of that extensive diffusion of these species, which is found in the valley of the Upper Mississippi, as at Lake Pepin, &c., and which has even been traced, in small pieces, as low as St. Louis and Herculaneum in Missouri.[ [227] We may conclude that the ancient sandstones, slates, and rubblestone, and amygdaloids, of which traces still remain, were swept from the summit of the Mississippi by those ancient floods which appear to have diffused the boulder drift from the North.
Sandy Lake.—The first view of this body of water was obtained from one of those eminences situated at the influx of the west Savanna River.
This lake is bounded, on its western borders, by the delta of the Mississippi; its outlet is about two miles in length. We here first beheld the object of our search. The soil on its banks is of the richest alluvial character. From this point, dense forests and a moderately elevated soil, varying from three or four to fifteen feet, confined the view, on either side, during more than two days' march. On the third day after leaving Sandy Lake, at an early hour, we reached the Falls of Pakágama. Here the rock strata show themselves for the first time on the Mississippi, in a prominent ledge of quartz rock of a gray color. Through this formation the Mississippi, here narrowed to less than half its width, forces a passage. The fall of its level in about fifty rods may be sixteen or eighteen feet. There is no cascade or leap, properly so called, but a foaming channel of extraordinary velocity, which it is alike impossible to ascend or descend with any species of water craft. It lies in the shape of an elbow. We made the portage on the north side.
Pakágama Summit.—The observer, when he has surmounted the summit, immediately enters on a theatre of savannas, level to the eye, and elevated but little above the water. Vistas of grass, reeds, and aquatic plants spread in every direction. On these grassy plains the river winds about, doubling and redoubling on itself, and increasing its cord of distance in a ratio which, by the most moderate computation, would seem extravagant. On those plateaux, and the small rivers and lakes connected with them, the wild rice reaches the highest state of perfection.
Our men toiled with their paddles till the third day, through this unparalleled maze of water and plants, when we reached the summit of the Upper Red Cedar or Cass Lake, where we encamped. In this distance no rock strata appeared, nor any formation other than a jutting ridge of sand, or an alluvial plain. Plateau on plateau had, indeed, carried us from one level or basin to another, like a pair of steps, till we had reached our extreme height.
Cass Lake Basin.—From estimates made, this lake is shown to lie at thirteen hundred and thirty feet above the Atlantic.[ [228] This is a small elevation, when we consider it as lying on the southern flank of the transverse formation which forms the connecting link with the Rocky Mountains. A rise or a subsidence of this part of the continent to this amount, would throw the Hudson's Bay and Arctic waters down the Mississippi valley. The scenery of its coasts is in part arenaceous plains, and in part arable land, yielding corn to the Indians.
Sources of the Mississippi.—In order to understand the geology of this region, it is necessary to premise, that the St. Lawrence, the Hudson's Bay, and the Mexican Gulf waters are separated by a ridge or watershed of diluvial hills, called the Hauteur des Terres, which begins immediately west of the basin of the Rainy Lakes and Rainy Lake River. This high ground subtends the utmost sources of the Mississippi, and reaches to the summit of Ottertail Lake, where it divides the tributaries of the Red River of Lake Winnepec from those of the Des Corbeau, or Great Crow-Wing River.
Within this basin, which circumscribes a sweep of several hundred miles, there appears to have been deposited, upon the trap and primary rocks which form its nucleus, a sedimentary argillaceous deposit, capable of containing water. Upon this, the sand and pebble drift reposes in strata of unequal thickness, and the sand is often developed in ridges and plains, bearing species of the pine. The effect has been, that the immense amount of vapor condensed upon these summits, and falling in dews, rains, and snows, being arrested by the impervious subsoil of clay, has concentrated itself in innumerable lakes, of all imaginable forms, from half a mile to thirty miles long. These are connected by a network of rivers, which pour their redundancy into the Mississippi, and keep up a circulation over the whole vast area. The sand plains often resting around the shores of these lakes create the impression of bodies of water resting on sand, which is a fallacy. Some of these bodies of water are choked up, or not well drained, and overflow their borders, forming sphagnous tracts. Hence the frequent succession of arid sand plains, impassable muskeegs, and arable areas on the same plateaux. Every system of the latter, of the same altitude, constitutes a plateau. The highest of these is the absolute source of the Mississippi waters. The next descending series forms another plateau, and so on, till the river finally plunges over St. Anthony's Falls.
In this descending series of plateaux, the Cass, Leech Lake, and Little Lake Winnipec form the third and fourth levels.
In descending the Mississippi below the Pakágama, the first stratum of rock, which rises through the delta of the river, occurs between the mouth of the Nokasippi and Elm Rivers, below the influx of the Great De Corbeau. This rock, which is greenstone trap, rises conspicuously in the bed of the stream, in a rocky isle seated in the rapid called—I know not with what propriety—the Big Falls, or Grande Chute. The precipitous and angular falls of this striking object decide that the bed of the stream is at this point on the igneous granitical and greenstone series. This formation is seen at a few points above the water, until we pass some bold and striking eminences of shining and highly crystalline hornblendic sienite, which rises in the elevation called by us Peace Rock, on the left bank, near the Osaukis Rapids. This rock lies directly opposite to the principal encampment on the 27th of July, which was on an elevated prairie on the west bank. To this point a delegation of Sioux had ascended on an embassy of peace from Fort Snelling to the Chippewas, having affixed on a pole what the exploring party called a bark letter, the ideas being represented symbolically by a species of picture writing, or hieroglyphics. In allusion to this embassy, this locality was called the Peace Rock. This rock is sienite. It is highly crystalline, and extends several miles. Its position must be, from the best accounts, in north latitude about 44° 30´. From this point to Rum River, a distance of seventy miles, no other point of the intrusion of this formation above the prairie soil was observed.
Introduction of the Palæontological Rocks.—After passing some fifty miles below this locality there are evidences that the river, in its progress south, has now reached the vicinity of the great carboniferous and metalliferous formations, which, for so great a length, and in so striking a manner, characterize both banks of the Mississippi below St. Anthony's Falls. About nine or ten miles before reaching these Falls, this change of geological character is developed; and on reaching the Falls the river is found to be precipitated, at one leap, over strata of white sandstone, overlaid by the metalliferous limestone. The channel is divided by an island, and drops in single sheets, about sixteen to eighteen feet, exclusive of the swift water above the brink, or of the rapids for several hundred yards below. This sandstone is composed of grains of pure and nearly limpid quartz, held together by the cohesion of aggregation. If my observations were well taken it embraces, sparingly, orbicular masses of hornblende. It is horizontal, and constitutes, in some places, walls of stratification, which are remarkable for their whiteness and purity. This sandstone is overlaid by the cliff limestone, the same in character, which assumes at some points a silicious, and at others, a magnesian character. It is manifestly the same great metalliferous rock which accompanies the lead ore of Missouri and mines of Peosta or Dubuque. There rests upon it the elder drift stratum of boulders, pebble, and loam, which marks the entire valley. This latter embraces boulders of quartz and hornblende rock, along with limestones and sandstones. It is overlaid by about eighteen inches of black alluvial carbonaceous mould.
From St. Anthony's Falls the river is perpetually walled on either side with those high and picturesque cliffs which give it so imposing and varied an appearance, and its current flows on with a majesty which seems to the imagination to make it rejoice in its might, confident of a power which will enable it to reach and carry its name to the ocean in its unchanged integrity.
St. Peter's River and Valley.—The importance, fertility, and value of this tributary have particularly impressed every member of the party. Its position as the central point of the Sioux power, and its border position to the Chippewas, the representative tribe of the great Algonquin family, render it now a place of note, which fully justifies the policy of the department in establishing a military post at the confluence of the river; and the importance cannot soon pass away, in the progress of the settlement of the Mississippi Valley.[ [229] It is the great route of communication with the valley of the Red River of the North, and the agricultural and trading settlements of Lord Selkirk in that fertile valley, and its complete exploration by a public officer is desirable, if not demanded.[ [230]
Of its geological character but little is known, and that connects it with both the great formations which have been noticed as succeeding each other at the great Peace Rock. That the granitical formation reaches it at a high point is probable, from the large reported boulders. The Indians bring from the blue earth fork of it, one of their most esteemed green and blue argillaceous pigments, of which the coloring matter appears to be carbonate of copper. They also bring from the Coteau des Prairie, probably Carver's "shining mountains," specimens of that fine and beautiful red pipe stone, which has so long been known to be used by them for that purpose. This mineral is fissile, and moderately hard, which renders it fit for their peculiar ripe sculptures. I found small masses of native copper in the drift stratum at the mouth of this stream, on the top of the cliffs on the Mississippi, opposite the mouth of the St. Peter's.
Crystalline Sand Rock.—This stratum reveals the same crystalline structure which is so remarkable in the sandstone caves, near the Potosi road, in the county of St. Genevieve, Missouri; and the sand obtained from it, like that mineral, would probably fuse, with alkali, in a moderate heat, and constitute an excellent material for the manufacture of glass. It is also, like the Missouri sandstone, cavernous. In both situations, these caves appear to be due to water escaping through fissures of the rock, where its cohesion is feeble, carrying it away grain by grain. In stopping at one of these caves, about twelve miles below St. Peter's, we found this cause of structure verified by a lively spring and pond of limpid water flowing out of it.
Valley of the St. Croix.—This river originates in an elevated range of the elder sand and pebble drift, which lies on the summit between the Mississippi system of formations, and the Lake Superior basin. It communicates with the Brulé, which is "Goddard's River" of Carver, and with the Mauvaise or Bad River of that basin. Specimens of native copper have been found on Snake River, one of its tributaries.[ [231]
Geological Monuments.—In descending the river for the distance of about one hundred miles below St. Anthony's Falls, my attention was arrested, on visiting the high grounds, by a species of natural monuments, which appear as if made by human hands seen at a distance, but appear to be the results of the degradation and wasting away, on the Huttonian theory, of all but these, probably harder, portions of the strata.
Lake Pepin.—This sheet commends itself to notice by its extent and picturesque features. It is an expansion of the river, about twenty-four miles long, and two or three wide. Both its borders and bed reveal the drift stratum, and the observer recognizes here, boulders of the peculiar stratification which has, in ancient periods, characterized the high plateaux about the sources of the river. Such are its hornblendic, sienite, quartz, trap, and amygdaloid pebbles, and that variety of the quartz family which assumes the form of the agate and other kindred species. Moved as these materials are annually, lower and lower, by the impetus of the stream, other supplies, it may be inferred, are still furnished by the shifting sand and gravel bars from above. The mass must submit to considerable abrasion by this change, and the diminished size of the drifted masses become a sort of measure of the distance at which they are found from their parent beds.
Chippewa River.—This stream is the first to bring in a vast mass of moving sand. Its volume of water is large, which it gathers from the high diluvial plains that spread southwest of the Porcupine Mountains, and about the sources of the Wisconsin, the Montreal, and the St. Croix Rivers, with which it originates.
Trompeldo (Le Montaine des Tromps d'Eaux).—This island mountain stands as if to dispute the passage of the Mississippi, whose channel it divides into two portions. Distinct from its height, which appears to correspond with the contiguous cliffs, and in the large amount of fresh debris at its base, it presents nothing peculiar in its geology.
Painted Rock.—This vicinity is chiefly noted for its large and fine specimens of fresh-water shells.
Wisconsin.—Like the Chippewa, this stream brings down in its floods, vast quantities of loose sand, which tend to the formation of bars and temporary islands. It originates in the same elevated plains, and bespeaks a considerable area at its sources, which must be arid. It is a region, however, in which lakes and rice lands abound, and it may, in this respect, be geologically of the same formation as the higher plateaux of the Mississippi, above the Sandy Lake summit. Its sides produce many species to enrich our fresh-water Conchology.
Lead Mines of Peosta and Dubuque.—In my researches into the mineral geography of Missouri, in 1818 and 1819, I had explored a district of country between the rivers Merrimak and St. Francis, and on the Ozarks, which revealed many traits which it has in common with the Upper Mississippi. There, as here, the mineral deposits appear to be, in many cases, in a red marly clay, whether the clay is overlaid by the calcareous rock or not. There, as here, also, the limestone and sandstone strata are perfectly horizontal. The leads of ore appear, in this section, to be followed with more certainty, agreeable to the points of the compass; but this may happen, to some extent, because the practice of mining on individual account, with windlass and buckets, in the Missouri district, has led common observers to be more indifferent to exact scientific methods. To say that the digging, at these mines, is equally, or more productive, is perhaps just. Capital and labor have been rewarded in both sections of the country, in proportion as they have been perseveringly and judiciously expended.
I found much of the ore, which is a sulphuret, at Dubuque's Mines, lying in east and west leads. These leads were generally pursued in caves, or, more properly, fissures in the rock. In one of the excavations which I visited, the digging was continued horizontally under the first stratum of rock, after an excavation had been made perpendicularly, through the top soil and calcareous rock, perhaps thirty feet. The ore is a broad-grained cubical galena, easily reduced, and bids fair very greatly to enhance the value and resources of this section of the West.
Similar mines exist at Mississinawa, and the River Au Fevé,[ [232] both on the eastern or left bank of the Mississippi. And a system of leasing or management, such as I have suggested for the Missouri mines, appears equally desirable.
Quartz Geodes.—The amount of silex in the cliff limestone is such, in some conditions of it, as to justify the term silico-calcareous. This condition of the rock at the passage of the Mississippi through the Rock River and Des Moines Rapids, is such as to produce a very striking locality of highly crystalline quartz geodes, which accumulates in the bed of the stream. Many of these geodes are from a foot to twenty-two inches in diameter, and on breaking them they exhibit resplendent crystals of limpid quartz. Sometimes these are amethystine; in other cases they present surfaces of chalcedony or cacholong. The latter minerals, if obtained from the rock, and before unduly hardening by exposure, would probably furnish a suitable basis for lapidaries.
Intermediate Country in the Direction to Green Bay.—There is a line which separates, on the north, the granitical and trap region from the metal-bearing limestone, and its supporting sandstone. This formation of the elder series of rocks, having been traced to the south shore of Lake Superior, and having been seen to constitute the supporting bed of the alluviums and diluviums of the Upper Mississippi, above the Peace Rock, it may subserve the purpose of inquiry to trace this line of junction by its probable and observed boundaries.
The line may be commenced where it crosses the Mississippi, at the Peace Rock, and extended to the St. Croix, the falls of which are on the trap-rock, to the sources of the Chippewa at Lac du Flambeau, and the Wisconsin near Plover Portage. The source of Fox River runs amid uprising masses of sienite, and this formation appears to pass thence northeasterly, across the Upper Menominee, to the district of the Totosh and Cradle-Top Mountains, west of Chocolate River, on the shores of Lake Superior.
I observed the crystalline sandstone and its overlying cliff limestone, along the valley of the Wisconsin, where ancient excavations for lead ore have been made. There is an entire preservation of its characters, and no reason occurs why its mineralogical contents should not prove, in some positions, as valuable as they have been found in Missouri, or in the Dubuque district west of the Mississippi.
On reaching the Wisconsin Portage, the limestone is found to have been swept by diluvial action, from its supporting sand rock. Such is its position not far north of the highest of the four lakes, and again at Lake Puckway, in descending the Fox River; consequently, there are no lead discoveries in this region. On coming to the calcareous rock, which is developed along the channel of the river, below Winnebago Lake, it appears rather to belong to the lake system of deposits. Its superior stratum lies in patches, or limited districts, which appear to have been left by drift action. Petrefactions are found in these districts, and the character of the rock is dark, compact, or shelly. The lower series of deposits, such as they appear at the Kakala Rapids, at Washington Harbor, in the entrance to Green Bay, and in the cliffs north of Sturgeon Bay and Portage, are manifestly of the same age and general character as the inferior stratum of Michilimackinac and the Manatouline chain.
Basin of Lake Michigan.—This basin, stretching from the north to the south nearly four hundred miles, lies deeply in the series of formation of limestones, sandstone, and schists, to which we apply the term of the Michilimackinac system. Its north and west shores are skirted from Green Bay to a point north of the Sheboygan, with the calcareous stratum. At this point, the ancient drift, the lacustrine clay of Milwaukie and the prairie diluvium of Chicago, constitute a succession, of which the surface is a slightly waving line of the most fertile soils.
Among the pebbles cast ashore at the southern head of this lake I observed slaty coal. It seems, indeed, the only one of the lakes which reaches south into the coal basin of Illinois. If the level at which coal is found on the Illinois were followed through, it would issue in the basin of the lake below low-water mark. Digging for this mineral on the Chicago summit, promises indeed not to be unsupported by sound hypothesis.
After passing Chicago, of which a sketch is added, the sands which begin to accumulate at the Konamik, the River du Chemin, and the St. Joseph's River,[ [233] appear in still more prominent ridges, skirting the eastern coasts to and beyond Grand River. These sands, which are the accumulations of winds, are cast on the arable land, much in the manner that has been noticed at the Grand Sable on Lake Superior, and reach the character of striking dunes at the coast denominated the Sleeping Bear. The winds which periodically set from the western shore, produce continual abrasions of its softer materials, and are the sole cause of these intrusive sand-hills. Pent up behind them, the water is a cause of malaria to local districts of country, and many of the small rivers upon this side are periodically choked with sand. The sketch transmitted of this bleak dune-coast (omitted here), as it is seen at the mouth of Maskigon Lake, will convey a false idea of the value of this coast, even half a mile from the spot where the surf beats. It is designed to show the air of aridity which the mere coast line presents. The stratification regains its ordinary level and appearance before reaching the Plate or Omicomico River, and the peninsula of the Grand Traverse Bay, and the settlements of the Ottawa Indians on Little Traverse Bay, afford tracts of fertile lands. Point Wagonshonce consists of a stratum of limestone of little elevation, which constitutes the southeast cape of the strait. Here a lighthouse is needed to direct the mariner.
Lake Huron.—Notices of this sheet of water have been given in our outward voyage. It appears rather as the junction of separate lakes which have had their basins fretted into one another, than as one original lake. Michigan is connected with it through the Straits of Michilimackinac. The Georgian Bay, north of the Manatouline chain, seems quite distinct. The Saganaw Bay is an element of another kind. The Manitouline chain separates the calcareous and granitic region, and its numerous trap and basaltic islands towards the north shore, of which there are many thousands, denote that it has been the scene of geological disturbance of an extraordinary kind.
Ulterior Conclusions.—In taking these several views of the geological structure of the Northwest—of the Lake Superior basin, and of the valleys of the St. Louis River—the region about the Upper Mississippi, its striking change at the Falls of St. Anthony—and the valleys of the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, and the basins of Lakes Michigan and Huron, I am aware of the temerity of my task. Allowance must, however, be made for the rapidity of my transit over regions where the question was often the safety and personal subsistence of the party. A very large and diversified area was passed over in a short time. At no place was it possible to make elaborate observations. A thousand inconveniences were felt, but they were felt as the pressure of so many small causes impeding the execution of a great enterprise. A sketch has been made, which, it is hoped, will reveal something of the physical history and lineaments of the country. These glimpses at wild scenes, heretofore hid from the curious eye of man, have been made, at all points, with the utmost avidity. I have courted every opportunity to accumulate facts, and I owe much to the distinguished civilian who has led the party so successfully through scenes of toil and danger, not always unexpected, but always met in a calm, bold, and proper spirit, which has served to inspire confidence in all; to him, and to each one of my associates, I owe much on the score of comity and personal amenity and forbearance; and I have been made to feel, in the remotest solitudes, how easy it is to execute a duty when all conspire to facilitate it.
The views herein expressed are generalized in two geological maps (hereto prefixed), which, it is believed, will help to fix the facts in the mind. They exhibit the facts noticed, in connection with the theory established by them, and by all my observations, of the construction of this part of the continent.
The mineralogy of the regions visited is condensed in the following summary, drawn from my notes, which, it is believed, constitutes an appropriate conclusion to this report.
With the exception of one species, namely, the ores of copper, the region has not proved as attractive in this department as I found the metalliferous surface of Missouri. There are but few traces of mining, and those of an exceedingly ancient character, in the copper region of Lake Superior. The excavations in search of lead ore on the Upper Mississippi do not date back many years, but the indications are such as to show that few countries, even Missouri, exceed them in promises of mineral wealth.
I have employed the lapse of time between the termination of the exploration and the present moment, to extend my mineralogical observations to some parts of the Mississippi Valley which were not included in the line of the expedition, but which were visited in the following year, in the service of the Government, namely, the Miami of the Lakes, and Wabash Valleys, the Cave in Rock Region in Lower Illinois, and the Valley of the River Illinois. The whole is concentrated in the following notices:—
Tabular View of Minerals observed in the Northwest.
| I. ORES. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genera. | Species. | Subspecies. | Varieties. | |
| Metallic minerals | Copper | Native copper. | ||
| Green carbonate of copper | Fibrous. | |||
| Compact. | ||||
| Lead | Sulphuret of lead | Common. | ||
| Zinc | Sulphuret of zinc | Blende. | ||
| Iron | Sulphuret of iron | Common. | ||
| Radiated. | ||||
| Spheroidal. | ||||
| Cellular. | ||||
| Hepatie. | ||||
| Magnetic oxide of iron | Iron sand. | |||
| Specular oxide of iron. | Micaceous. | |||
| Red oxide of iron | Ochrey. | |||
| Scaly. | ||||
| Compact. | ||||
| Brown oxide of iron | Ochrey. | |||
| Silver. | ||||
a. Metallic Minerals.
1. Copper.
This metal is frequently found, in detached masses, in the diluvial soil along the southern shore of Lake Superior, and in the high and barren tract included between Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, and the Mississippi River, as general boundaries. Thus, it has been found upon the sources of the Menomonie, Wisconsin, Chippewa, St. Croix, and Ontonagon Rivers, but most constantly, and in the greatest quantity, upon the latter. There are many localities known only to the aborigines, who appear to set some value upon it, and have been in the habit of employing the most malleable pieces in several ways from the earliest times. It occurs mostly in detached masses, resting upon, or imbedded in, diluvial soil. These masses, which vary in size, are sometimes connected with isolated fragments of rock. Such is the geognostic position of the great mass of native copper upon the banks of the Ontonagon, which has been variously estimated to weigh from two to five tons. This extraordinary mass is situated at the base of a diluvial precipice composed of reddish loam and mixed boulders and pebbles of granite, greenstone, quartz, and sandstone and diallage rocks. The nearest strata, in situ, are red sandstone, grauwacke, and greenstone trap. A company of miners was formerly employed in searching for copper mines upon the banks of this river. They dug down about forty feet into the diluvial soil, at a spot where a green-colored water issued from the hill. In sinking this pit, several masses of native copper were found, and they discovered, as their report indicates, the same metal "imbedded in stone." But the enterprise was abandoned, in consequence of the falling in of the pit.
At Keweena Point, on Lake Superior, I found native copper along the shore of the lake, constituting small masses in pebbles, and, in one instance, in a mass of several pounds' weight, which was found in the Ontonagon Valley. I also observed the green carbonate of copper, in several places, in the detritus. The strata of this point appear to be charged with this mineral, particularly in its native forms. Hardly a mass of the loose rock is without some trace of the metal, or its oxides or salts. It would be difficult, on any known principles, to resist the testimony which is offered, by every observer, to favor the idea that extensive and very valuable mines exist. The whole lake shore, from this peninsula to the Montreal River, is replete with these evidences.
There are indications that this mineral pervades the rocks and soils, in a radius of one hundred and fifty miles or more, south and west of this central point. It has been discovered at the sources of the Menominee, Chippewa, Montreal, and St. Croix, and even at more distant points.
At St. Peter's, in digging down for the purpose of quarrying the rock, about eighteen inches depth of dark alluvium was passed; then a deposit of diluvial soil, with large fragments of limestone, greenstone, quartz rock, &c., about six feet; and, lastly, one foot of small pebbles, &c., constituting the copper diluvium. No large mass was found; nor any veins in the rock.
2. Lead.
The only ore of lead known to exist within the limits to which these remarks are confined, is the sulphuret. In the year 1780, Peosta, a woman of the Misquakee, or Fox tribe of Indians, discovered a lead mine upon the west banks of the Mississippi, at the computed distance of twenty-five leagues below Prairie du Chien, which the Indians, in 1788, gave Julian Dubuque a right to work. This permission was partially confirmed by the Baron de Carondelet, Governor of Louisiana, in 1796. No patent was, however, issued; but Dubuque continued to prosecute the mining business to the period of his death, which happened in 1810, when the mines were again claimed by the original proprietors.
The ore is the common sulphuret of lead, or galena, which Dubuque stated to have yielded him seventy-five per cent. in smelting in the large way. He usually made from 20,000 to 40,000 pounds per annum.
I made a cursory visit to these mines, and found them worked by the Fox Indians, but in a very imperfect manner. They cover a considerable area, commencing at the mouth of the Makokketa River, sixty miles below Prairie du Chien. Traces of the ore are found, also, on the east bank of the Mississippi at several points. It occurs disseminated in a reddish loam, resting upon limestone rock, and is sometimes seen in small veins pervading the rock; but it has been chiefly explored in diluvial soil. It generally occurs in beds having little width, and runs in a direct course towards the cardinal points. They are sometimes traced into a crevice of the rock. At this stage of the pursuit, most of the diggings have been abandoned. Little spar or crystalline matrix is found in connection with the ore. It is generally enveloped by a reddish, compact earth, or marly clay. Occasionally, masses of calcareous spar occur; less frequently, sulphate of barytes, green iron earth, and ochrey brown oxide of iron. I did not observe any masses of radiated quartz, which form so conspicuous a trait in the surface of the metalliferous diluvion of the mining district of Missouri.
Sufficient attention does not appear to have been bestowed, by mineralogists, upon the metalliferous soil of the Mississippi Valley. It is certainly very remarkable that such vast deposits of lead ore, accompanied by veins of sulphate of barytes, calc spar, and other crystallized bodies, should be found in alluvial beds; and it would be very interesting to ascertain whether any analogous formations exist in Europe, or in any other part of the earth's surface. It is one of the most striking features of this deposit, that the ore, spars, &c., do not appear as the debris of older formations, and have no marks of having been worn or abraded, like those extraneous masses of rock which are very common in the alluvial soil of our continent. The lead ore and accompanying minerals appear to have been crystallized in the situations where they are now found. We should, perhaps, except from this remark the species of lead called gravel ore by the miners, which is in rounded lumps, and is never accompanied by spars.
Sulphuret of lead is also found near the spot where the small River Sissinaway enters the Mississippi, and two leagues south of it, upon the banks of the River Aux Fevre, at both of which places considerable quantities have been raised, and continue to be raised, for the purposes of smelting, by the Fox and Sac tribes of Indians. At these places, it is most frequently connected with a gangue of heavy spar and calcareous spar, with pyrites of iron. I procured from a trader, at Dubuque, several masses of galena crystallized in cubes and octahedrons.
In descending the Upper Mississippi, a specimen of galena was exhibited to me, by a Sioux Indian, at the village of the Red Wing, six miles above Lake Pepin, said to have been procured in that vicinity. Galena is also reported to have been discovered in several places on the south side of the Wisconsin River, and these localities may be entitled to future notice, as furnishing important hints.
3. Zinc.
The sulphuret of zinc (black blende) is found disseminated in limestone rock along the banks of Fox River, between the post of Green Bay and Winnebago Lake. Although frequently seen in small masses, no body of it is known to exist. I also found blende, in small, orbicular masses of calcareous marl, along the east shore of Lake Michigan, between the Rivers St. Joseph and Kikalemazo.
4. Iron.
This mineral is distributed, in several of its forms, throughout the region visited, although but little attention has yet been directed to its exploration. In the basin of Lake Superior it exists, in valuable masses, in the form of a magnetic oxide, on the coasts of the lake between Gitchi Sebing (Great River), called by the French Chocolate River, and Granite Point. Specimens from Dead River (Riviere du Morts) and Carp River, the Namabin of the Indians, in this district, denote the latter to be the chief locality. It is the iron glance, and occurs in mountain masses.
Sulphuret of Iron.—This variety is found, in limited quantities, in a state of crystallization, in clay beds, on the west shore of Lake Michigan, between Milwaukie and Chicago. It is frequently in the form of a cube or an octahedron. Some of the crystals are in lumps of several pounds' weight, with a metallic lustre. Often the masses, on being broken, are found radiated, sometimes cellular, and occasionally irised.
Iron Sand.—The breaking-up and prostration of the sandstone and other sedimentary formations, along the shores of lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior, liberates this ore in considerable quantities. It arranges itself, on the principle of its specific gravities, in separate strata along the sandy shores, where it invariably occupies the lowest position at and below the water's edge. The shores of Fond du Lac, on Lake Superior, may be particularly mentioned as an abundant locality.
Micaceous Oxide of Iron.—In detached mass, among the debris of the River St. Louis and of Fond du Lac. It exists in veins in the clay slate which characterizes the banks of this river.
Ochrey Red Oxide of Iron. (Red ochre)—Is produced near a spot called the Big Stone, on the head of the River St. Peter's. It is said to occur in a loose form, in a stratum of several inches thick, lying below the soil of a level dry prairie or plain. The Sioux Indians, who employ it as a paint, make this statement. The color of a portion given to me by them is of a bright red; and a considerable proportion of the mass is in a state of minute division. Particles of quartz are occasionally mixed with it. This ore of iron is also represented to be found in the prairies north of Gros Point, along the west shore of Lake Michigan, between Milwaukie and Chicago.
Ochrey red oxide of iron occurs on the shores of Big Stone Lake, at the source of the St. Peter's River. A large spring rises from a level, dry plain, a few feet beyond which the mineral occurs. The Indians, who employ it as a pigment, take it up with their knives. The stratum is about eight inches thick, but just below the surface it is mixed with common earth. The spring of water is pure and unadulterated.
5. Silver.
The belief in the existence of silver ore in the region of the lakes, and particularly on Lake Superior, seems to have early prevailed. So much confidence was placed in the reports of its existence, that Henry tells when a company was formed in England for exploring the copper mines of Lake Superior (A. D. 1771), they were impelled to the search more from an expectation of the silver, which it was hoped would be found in connection with it, than from the copper.[ [234]
b. Silicious Minerals.
1. Quartz.
This interesting species being distributed in its numerous varieties throughout the region visited, I shall confine my notices to a few localities.
Subs. 1.—Common Quartz.
Occurs in the form of large water-worn masses along the shores of Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior. Also, in veins in the granite of Lake Superior, and in the argillite of St. Louis River. These localities all consist of the opaque varieties, with a slight degree of translucence in some places. It exists in mass at Huron Bay, Lake Superior, and in fragments of red jasper on Sugar Island, St. Mary's River.
1. Radiated Quartz.—In detached masses on the Grange, and also at the rapids of the River Desmoines, on the Upper Mississippi. At the Grange, the crystals, which are usually minute, sometimes possess a cinnamon color, or pass into a variety of crystallized ferruginous quartz.
2. Tabular Quartz.—In small, flattened masses along the shores of Lake Pepin. These masses are transparent, or only translucent. Their color is generally white, but sometimes yellow. They appear to be closely allied to chalcedony.
3. Greasy Quartz.—In detached masses along the shores of Lake Superior.
4. Granular Quartz.—At the Falls of Puckaiguma, on the Upper Mississippi, in large, compact beds rising through the soil. Also, in some conditions of the cliffs commencing at the Falls of St. Anthony, Carrer's Cave, &c.
5. Arenaceous Quartz.—This is sometimes the condition of fine, even-grained, translucent sand rock of the preceding localities. Valuable as an ingredient of glass.
6. Pseudomorphous Quartz.—On the shores of Lake Pepin, occasionally. These masses appear to have taken their crystalline impress from rhomboidal crystals of carbonate of lime.
7. Amethystine Quartz.—In the trap-rock of Lake Superior.
Subs. 2.—Amethyst.
This mineral occurs most frequently in the condition of amethystine quartz, in hexahedral prisms, lining the interior of geodes, in the bed of the River Desmoines, and on the Rock Rapids, in the channel of the Mississippi. The crystals which I have examined are generally limpid, with a high lustre, and of a pale violet color. Sometimes the tinge of color approaches to a full red, or is only apparent in the summit of the crystal. These geodes are sometimes eight or ten inches in diameter, with a rough and dark-colored exterior, often so nearly spherical as to resemble cannon balls. Some of the finest specimens I have observed from this locality are preserved in the museum of Gov. Clarke, at St. Louis, Missouri.
Subs. 3.—Ferruginous Quartz.
In amorphous masses, of a deep-red, brown, or yellowish-red color, along the southern shore of Lake Superior. Likewise, crystallized, in very minute hexagonal prisms, terminated by six-sided pyramids, of a reddish color, on the summit and declivities of the Grange de Terre.
Subs. 4.—Prase.
In the drift of Lake Superior. Its color is a light green and not fully translucent. It possesses a hardness and a lustre intermediate between waxy and resinous.
Subs. 5.—Chalcedony.
1. Common Chalcedony.—In globular or reniform masses imbedded in trap-rock, on the Peninsula of Keweena, Lake Superior. It is found sometimes in association with other quartz minerals. Its color is white or gray, sometimes veined or spotted with red. Also, constituting the interior lining of geodes at the rapids of Rock Island and the River Desmoines. These geodes, on breaking, often present a mammillary surface. In the form of translucent fragments, with a highly conchoidal fracture, among the debris of the shores of Lake Pepin. These fragments possess an extremely delicate texture, color, and lustre.
2. Cacholong.—Some loose fragments of this mineral exist along the west shore of Lake Michigan, between Green Bay and Chicago. These fragments possess small cavities studded over with very minute and perfect crystals of quartz.
3. Carnelian.—This mineral occurs in fragments in the debris of Lake Superior; also, in the amygdaloid; also, around the shores of the Upper Mississippi. Its color is various shades of red, or yellowish red, sometimes spotted or clouded, fully translucent, and occasionally presenting a considerable richness and beauty. Most commonly, the fragments are too small to be applied to the purposes of jewelry. Sometimes it is seen in very regular spheroidal masses, which contain a nucleus of radiated quartz. Some of the specimens would be considered as sardonyx.
4. Agate.—Is found with the preceding. It is more frequently found in larger masses, in the rock, which are sometimes spheroidal, reniform, or globular. These agates are chiefly arranged in concentric layers, which are white, red, yellow, &c., according to the colors of the different varieties of chalcedonies, carnelians, &c., of which they are composed. A close inspection would also separate them into several varieties—as onyx, agate, dotted agate, &c.
Subs. 6.—Hornstone.
In nodular or angular masses, imbedded in the secondary limestone of the west shores of Green Bay; and in the beds of argillaceous white clay strata of Cape Girardeau, of Missouri. Also, on the hills of White River, Arkansas.
Subs. 7.—Jasper.
1. Common Jasper.—In detached fragments, yellow, in the drift of Lake Superior.
2. Striped Jasper.—With the preceding. Most commonly, these specimens consist of alternate bands of red and black, or brown.
3. Red Jasper.—In quartz rock, Sugar Island, River St. Mary's, Michigan. Masses of this mineral have been met in situ.
Subs. 8.—Heliotrope.
A fine specimen of this mineral, now before me, was procured at the mouth of the Columbia River, Oregon. It is in the form of an Indian dart. Its color is a deep uniform green, variegated with small spots of red; those parts which are green being fully translucent, the others less so, or nearly opaque. This beautiful mineral is represented to have been in common use by the Indian tribes of the Northwest Coast, for pointing their arrows, previous to the introduction of iron among them. It differs chiefly from the dotted jaspers of Lake Michigan, in its translucence and green color.
Subs. 9.—Opal.
Common opal occurs as a constituent of agate, along with chalcedony rarely, in the drift on the south shore of Lake Superior.
2. Silicious Slate.
1. Common.—In subordinate beds, in the argillite of the River St. Louis, northwest of Lake Superior.
2. Basanite (Touchstone).—In detached fragments in the drift on Lake Superior, and along the banks of the Upper Mississippi generally.
3. Petrosilex.
In large isolated masses in the bed of the Illinois River, on the shallow rapids between the junction of the Fox and Vermilion Rivers. It is mostly arranged in stripes or circles of white, gray, yellow, &c., resembling certain jaspers, or approaching sometimes to hornstone. The bed of the Illinois River, at this place, is a species of gray sandstone. Also, in detached fragments, on the south shore of Lake Superior, intimately mixed with prehnite. In regard to the latter, Professor Dewey, of Williamstown College, writes me: "I have received from Dr. Torrey, a curious mixture of petrosilex and prehnite, in imperfect radiating crystals, which was sent him by you and collected at the West. He did not tell me the name, but examination showed what it was. The association is singularly curious." The locality of this mineral is Keweena Point, Lake Superior.
4. Mica.
Occurs rarely in the granite of Lake Superior. It is found in place on the Huron Islands. Also, in minute folia, in the alluvial soil of the Upper Mississippi. A beautiful aggregate, consisting of plates of gold-yellow mica, connected with very black and shining crystals of schorl, has been dug up from the alluvial soil of the Island of Michilimackinac.
5. Schorl.
1. Common Schorl.—In crystals, in boulders of granite, at Green Bay.
2. Tourmaline.—With the preceding.
6. Feldspar.
As an ingredient in the granite of Huron Islands, Lake Superior. Also, in detached masses of granite along the west shores of Lake Michigan. Also, in the form of prismatic crystals of a light-green color, in the rolled masses of hornblende, porphyry, greenstone, and epidotic boulders of Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior.
7. Prehnite.
This mineral occurs at Keweena Point, on Lake Superior. It is found in connection with isolated blocks of amygdaloid, of primitive greenstone, and of petrosilex. Sometimes native copper, and carbonate of copper, are also present in the same specimen. In some instances, a partial decomposition has taken place, converting its green color into greenish-white, or perfect white, and rendering it so soft as to be cut with a knife. Sometimes the grains or masses of native copper are interspersed among the prehnite, and slender threads of this metal occasionally pass through the aggregated mass of greenstone, prehnite, &c., so that, on breaking it, the fragments are still held together by these metallic fibres.
8. Hornblende.
1. Common Hornblende.—Occurs as a constituent of the hornblende rocks near Point Chegoimegon, Lake Superior. Also, at the Peace Rock, on the Upper Mississippi, and in certain granite aggregates, and rolled masses of porphyries, &c., around the shores of Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior.
2. Actynolite.—In slender, translucent, greenish crystals, pervading rolled masses of serpentine, on the west shores of Lake Michigan.
9. Woodstone.
1. Mineralized Wood.—In bed of the River Des Plaines, Illinois.
2. Agatized Wood.—This variety of fossil wood is found along the alluvial shores of the Mississippi and of the Missouri.
c. Calcareous Minerals.
Carbonate of Lime.
Of a substance so universally distributed throughout the western country, it will not be necessary to give many localities, and these will be principally confined to its crystalline forms.
Subs. 1.—Calcareous Spar.
Crystallized Calcareous Spar.—This mineral occurs, in minute rhomboidal crystals, in the calcareous rock of the Island of Michilimackinac. Sometimes these crystals fill cavities or seams of the rock, or are studded over the angular surfaces of masses of vesicular limestone of that island. I also found this mineral at Dubuque's mines, and in small crystals in the metalliferous limestone bordering the Fox River, between the post of Green Bay and Winnebago Lake, where it is associated with iron pyrites and blende.
Subs. 2.—Compact Limestone.
In proceeding northwest of Detroit, this mineral is first observed, in situ, on an island in Lake Huron. It is afterwards found to be the prevailing rock along the south and southwest shores of Lake Huron. In many places, it incloses fossil remains. Sometimes it is earthy, as at Bay De Noquet, a part of Green Bay, on Lake Michigan, where it contains very perfect remains of the terrebratula. (Parkinson.) In other places, no remains whatever are visible, and the structure is firm and compact; or even passes, by a further graduation, into transition-granular, of which, it is believed, the west shores of Lake Michigan afford an instance. It is most commonly based upon sandstone, which also contains, in many places, the fossil organized remains of various species of crustaceous animals, and of vegetables, sometimes, coal, &c.
Subs. 3.—Agaric Mineral.
This mineral substance occurs in crevices and cavities in the calcareous rock of the Island of Michilimackinac, Michigan.
Subs. 4.—Concrete Carbonate of Lime.
1. Calcareous Sinter.—In the form of stalactites and stalagmites, in a cave situated near Prairie du Chien, on the Upper Mississippi.
2. Calcareous Tufa.—A remarkable formation of tufa is seen on the east banks of the Wabash River, near Wynemac's Village, about ten miles above the junction of the Tippecanoe. It extends for several miles, and is deposited to the thickness of thirty or forty feet above the water, forming cliffs which are covered with alluvial soil and sustain a growth of forest trees. The precise points of its commencement and disappearance were not observed. The structure is cellular or vesicular, and resembles, in some places, a coarse dried mortar. It is very light, and possesses a white color in inferior situations, but the surface is somewhat colored by fallen leaves and other decaying vegetation. It imbeds fluvatile shells and some vegetable remains, the species of which have not been ascertained. The opposite, or west side of the river consists of a kind of puddingstone, or caschalo, made up of pebbles of quartz, &c., cemented by carbonate of lime, of a yellow color and translucent. This beautiful aggregate is overlayed by a stratum, of fifteen or twenty feet in thickness, of diluvial soil. These localities fall within the limits of the State of Indiana; but on territories still occupied, if not owned, by the aborigines.
3. Pseudomorphous Carbonate of Lime.—This form of carbonate of lime occurs in Pope County, Illinois, a district celebrated for its fluorspar, lead, crystallized quartz, &c., and bearing the unequivocal marks of a secondary formation. Scattered in large masses over the soil, we observe compact limestone, with very perfect cubical, octahedral, or other regular cavities, which have manifestly originated from crystals of fluorspar. The most common impress of this kind appears to have resulted from two cubes variously joined—a form of appearance very common to the Illinois fluates. Some of these cubical cavities exceed three inches square; but in no case is any remaining portion of the spar in these cavities, or anywise connected with the fragments of limestone thus impressed, although, at the same time, the spar is very abundant in the alluvial soil where these curious limestones are found.
2. Sulphate of Lime.
Subs. Gypsum.
1. Fibrous Gypsum.—In the alluvial soil of the St. Martin's Islands, Lake Huron. The fibres are sometimes five or six inches in length, of a white color and delicate crystalline lustre. Sometimes these fibrous masses are partially colored yellow or brown, apparently from the clay, or mixed alluvion, in which they are imbedded.
| 2. Granular Gypsum. 3. Granularly-Foliated Gypsum. 4. Earthy Gypsum. | }With the preceding. |
- 2. Granular Gypsum.
- 3. Granularly-Foliated Gypsum.
- 4. Earthy Gypsum.
3. Fluate of Lime.
Fluor-Spar.—On the United States Mineral Reserve, Pope County, Illinois. This locality is abundant, and the mineral readily and constantly to be obtained. I first obtained specimens in June, 1818, and afterwards visited it in July, 1821. It is disseminated in loose masses throughout the soil, and in veins in the calcareous rocks. The spot most noted and resorted to, and where the original discovery was made, is four miles west of Barker's Ferry, at Cave-in-Rock, on the banks of the Ohio, and about twenty-six miles, by the course of the river, below Shawneetown. It is situated in the midst of a hilly, broken region, called the Knobs, a tract of highlands intervening between the banks of the Ohio and the Saline. The distance of this range from north to south, or parallel with the course of the Ohio, cannot be stated. It probably extends from near the banks of the Wabash River to the Little Chain of Rocks. Its breadth—from Barker's Ferry, west, to Ensminger's, at the Saline, is about twenty miles. It thus separates, by a rocky border, the prairies of the Illinois from the current of the Ohio River. These knobs, wherever observed, bear the indubitable marks of secondary formation, and may be stated to consist, essentially, of compact limestone resting on sandstone. The sandstone is sometimes so much colored by iron, and by globular or irregular masses of iron stone, as to give that rock a very singular aspect. This may be particularly instanced in the mural front of the Battery rocks on the banks of the Ohio. Every part of this formation has more or less the appearance of a mineral country; and it is already known as the locality of ores of lead, iron, and zinc, of crystallized quartz, of opal, heavy spar, crystallized pyrites, and of very perfect fossil madrepores. In one place (near the head of Hurricane Island) this spar forms a very large and compact vein, dipping under the bed of the Ohio. Where the rock has been explored, it is found in connection with sulphuret of lead, but it has been mostly procured, because most easy of access, in the alluvial soil. I went out about half a mile west of the Ohio, where a new locality has been opened, and, in removing about five or six solid feet of earth, procured as many specimens as filled a box of fourteen inches square. None of these were more than two feet below the surface. One of these specimens is an irregular octahedral crystal, eight inches in diameter. The color of these masses is various shades of blue, violet, or red, sometimes perfectly white or yellow; and the form most commonly assumed is a cube, sometimes truncated at two or more angles, or variously clustered. The external lustre of the crystals, raised from alluvial soil, is feeble, but quite brilliant when taken from veins and cavities in the rock. These spars from the alluvion do not appear to exist as rock debris, or fragments worn off from other formations, but as original deposits. There are no marks of attrition. They appear as much in place as the limestone rocks below. It should also be recollected that this mineral tract is terminated by one of the greatest and most valuable salt formations in the western country—that of the Illinois Saline.
Septaria: Ludus Helmontii.—This variety of calcareous marl is found, in orbicular or flattened masses, along the eastern shores of Lake Michigan, between the rivers St. Joseph's and Kalemazo. Its original situation appears to be the beds of marly clay which form the banks of Lake Michigan at these places, from which these masses have been disengaged by the waves, and left promiscuously among the washed and eroded debris of the shore. These masses are penetrated by numerous seams and lines of calcareous spar, sometimes radiating star-like, or intersecting each other irregularly. Occasionally, these seams are filled with sulphuret of zinc, and in these cases the spar, if any be present, is rose-colored.
d. Aluminous Minerals.
Argillaceous Slate.
1. Argillite, or Common Argillaceous Slate.—Along the banks of the River St. Louis, at the Grand Portage, &c. It occurs in a vertical position, embracing veins, or subordinate beds, of grauwakke, milky quartz, chlorite slate, and silicious slate, &c. It is bounded on one side by red sandstone, and on the other by an extensive tract of diluvial soil.
2. Bituminous Shale.—In detached masses, along the shores of Lake Huron, between Fort Gratiot and Thunder Bay. It contains amorphous masses of iron pyrites, of a yellow color and metallic brilliancy, which soon tarnishes on exposure to the air.
2. Chlorite.
Chlorite Slate.—In subordinate strata in the argillite of the River St. Louis.
3. Staurotide.
In garnet-colored crystals, in detached blocks of mica-slate, in the drift of Lake Huron. These crystals consist of two intersecting six-sided prisms, truncated at both ends, forming the cross. They are nearly opaque, or feebly translucent on the fractured edge.
4. Clay.
1. Plastic Clay.—Very extensive beds of this clay are seen along the west shore of Lake Michigan, between Sturgeon Bay Portage and Chicago. Its color is generally a light blue, verging sometimes into deep blue or grayish-white. It is plastic in water, adheres strongly to the tongue, takes a polish from the nail, and emits an argillaceous odor when moistened or breathed upon. These beds of clay frequently contain iron pyrites, both in the crystallized and amorphous state.
2. Pipe Clay.—In the flats of the St. Clair and Lake George, Michigan. A bed of clay, apparently answering to this description, exists at White River, Lake Michigan. Its color is a grayish-white, verging to blue. It is very unctuous and adhesive when first raised, but acquires more or less of a meagre feel as it parts with its moisture, drying in firm and compact masses.
3. Variegated Clay.—On the banks of the River St. Peter's, Upper Mississippi. Neither the quantity in which it exists, nor the precise locality is known. Its color is white, variegated with stripes, spots, or clouds of red or yellow.
4. Azure Blue Clay of St. Peter's.—The locality of this substance, as communicated by the Indians, is the declivity of a hill, in the rear of the village of Sessitongs, one mile above the confluence of the Terre Blue River with the St. Peter's. It is found near the foot of this hill, between two layers of sandstone rock, in a vein about fifteen inches in thickness. This vein is elevated about twenty feet above the waters of the Terre Bleu, and does not extend far in the direction of the river. Having been resorted to by the Sioux Indians a long time, a considerable excavation has been made, but the supply is constant. The color of this mineral substance (its distinguishing character) is an azure copper blue of more or less intensity. It is ductile and moderately adhesive, when first taken up, or when moistened with water, but acquires an almost stony solidity on drying. It is considerably adulterated with sand or particles of quartz. It parts with its moisture rapidly on exposure to the atmosphere, and dries without much apparent diminution of volume.
5. Green Clay of St. Peter's.—This differs little from the preceding, except in its color, which is a deep or verdigris green, admitting some diversity of shades. Its composition appears to be, essentially, alumina, silica, carbonate of copper, water, and iron.
6. Opwagunite; Calamet Stone; Pipe Stone.—The last of these terms is a translation of the first, which is Algonquin. Under these names, a peculiar kind of stone, which is much employed by the Indians for pipes, has been alluded to by travellers and geographers from the earliest times. It appears to be a variety of argillaceous wacke. Its color is most commonly a uniform dull red, resembling that of red chalk. Sometimes it is spotted with brown or yellow, but these spots are very minute, and the colors usually faint. It is perfectly opaque, very compact in its structure, and possessing that degree of hardness which admits its being cut or scraped with a knife, or sawed without injury to a common hand-saw, when first raised from the quarry; but it acquires hardness by exposure, and even takes a polish. But it is not capable of receiving a polish by the usual process of rubbing with grit-stone and pumice, these substances being too harsh for it. The Indian process is to scrape or file it smooth, and give it a polish by rubbing with the scouring rush. Its powder is a light red, and emits an argillaceous odor when wetted. This substance is procured at the Coteau des Prairie, intermediate between the sources of the St. Peter's and the Great Sioux Rivers. Some other places have been mentioned as affording this mineral, particularly a locality on the waters of Chippewa River; but the mineral procured here is chocolate-colored.
e. Magnesian Minerals.
1. Serpentine.
At Presque Isle Point, Lake Superior, common and precious, in isolated masses; also, in connection with, and imbedding native copper, along the southern shore of Lake Superior, at Ontonagon River, &c.
2. Steatite.
At Presque Isle, near River au Mort, Lake Superior, in connection with the serpentine formation. Also, at the Lake of the Woods, of a black or very dark color, where it is employed by the Indians in carving pipes.
3. Asbestos.
Common Asbestos.—In serpentine and steatite, at Presque Isle Point, Lake Superior. Also, in minute veins, in detached masses of diallage and serpentine rocks, on the west shore of Lake Michigan. These veins are no more than a fourth of an inch in width; and the fibres of asbestos occur transversely. They are very flexible, and easily reducible into a flocculent mass.
f. Barytic Minerals.
Sulphate of Barytes.
Lamellar Sulphate of Barytes.—In detached masses, imbedded in diluvial soil, at the mines of Peosta, or Dubuque, on the Upper Mississippi, where it is accompanied by sulphuret of lead, calcareous spar, &c. Also, at the Mine au Fevre (now Galena), and at the mouth of the Sissinaway River, on the east banks of the Mississippi, between Prairie du Chien and Fort Armstrong. Its colors are white or yellow, and it is frequently incrusted with a thin coat of yellow oxide of iron. It is most commonly opaque. The only translucent specimen seen was procured at Dubuque's mines.
g. Strontian Minerals.
Sulphate of Strontian.
Foliated Sulphate of Strontian.—At Presque Isle (Wayne's Battle Ground), on the Maumee River, Wood County, Ohio. It occurs in veins and cavities, in compact limestone, most commonly in the form of flattened prisms. Its color is blue, frequently a very light or sky-blue, and the crystals are fully translucent, or even transparent. In some instances, they appear to have suffered a partial decomposition, and fall into fragments in the act of raising, or are covered with a white powdery crust, frequently visible only on the summits or terminating points of the prisms. The same limestone yields crystallized calcareous spar. Both these substances are abundant in the rocky banks and in the bed of the Maumee. Also, on Grosse Isle, Detroit River, Michigan.
h. Bituminous Minerals.
1. Bitumen.
Petroleum.—Occurs in cavities, in loose fragments of limestone rock, along the west shore of Lake Michigan, between Milwaukie and Chicago. These masses of rock lie promiscuously among fragments of quartz, granite, sandstone, fossil madrepores, &c., along the alluvial shore of the lake, and appear to have been washed up from its bed. The petroleum is in a free and liquid state; but, where it has suffered an exposure to the atmosphere, it has acquired a stiff and tar-like consistence passing into maltha. Not unfrequently, fragments of mineral coal are also found scattered along these shores, and there is reason to conclude that a bituminous formation exists in the contiguous inferior strata forming the basin of the lake.
2. Graphite.
Granular Graphite.—In a small vein, in the clay-slate of the River St. Louis, at the head of the nine-mile portage. It is coarse-grained and gritty.
3. Coal.
Slaty Coal.—The only spot where this mineral has been observed, in situ, is at La Charbonniére, on the west banks of the Illinois River, at the computed distance of one hundred and twenty miles south of the post of Chicago. It is here seen in horizontal strata, not exceeding two or three inches in thickness, interposed between layers of sandstone and shale. Breaking out on the declivity of the bank of the river, where the overlaying strata are constantly crumbling down, and thus obscuring the seams, no very satisfactory examination could be made in a hasty visit; but the nature and position of the rock strata and soils, and the general aspect of the country, do not justify the conclusion that the bed is of much thickness or extent. Valuable beds may be discovered, however, by exploring this formation. This coal has a shining black color, a slaty structure, inflames readily, burning with a bright flame. It is very fragile where exposed to the weather, falling into fine fragments. Hence, a very black color has been communicated to the contiguous and overlaying soil, which is manifestly more or less the result of disintegrated coal.
Detached fragments of coal, corresponding in mineral characters with the above, are occasionally found around the southern shores of Lake Michigan. The inference, as to the existence of coal around the shores of this lake, is obvious. And we are led to inquire: Does the La Charbonniére formation of coal exist in the sandstone and limestone strata forming the table-land between the Illinois River and Lake Michigan, and reappearing around the basin of the latter, but at such a depression below its surface as to elude observation? And, if so, does not this coal formation extend quite across the southern portion of the peninsula of Michigan? The secondary character of the region alluded to, so far as observed, the horizontal and relative position of the strata, and the general uniformity which is generally observed in the species and order of the coal measures, favor this suggestion.
i. Soda.
1. Muriate of Soda.
No traces of salt are known to have been discovered in those parts of the territory of the United States situated north of latitude 46° 31´ (which is that of the Sault Ste. Marie) and east of the Mississippi River. The great secondary formations which pervade the western country cease south of this general limit, and with them terminate the salt springs, the gypsum beds, the coal measures, and other connected minerals which are generally found in association. It is one of the most important facts which the science of geology has contributed to the stock of useful information, that, in the natural order of the rocky and earthy deposits, muriate of soda always occupies a position contiguous to that of gypsum. This intimate connection between the sulphate of lime and the muriate of soda, enables us, by the discovery of the one, to predict, with considerable but not unerring certainty, the presence of the other. It adds weight to an observation first made among the salt formations of Europe, to find its general correctness corroborated by the relative position of these substances in the United States. These remarks will apply particularly to the salt formations of New York, and to some portions of the muriatiferous region of Virginia and the Arkansas.
There appears to be a salt formation extending from the northwest angle of the Ohio through Michigan, for a distance of two hundred to three hundred miles. It commences in the Seweekly country, passing around the Sandusky River of Lake Erie, where an extensive bed of granular gypsum has recently been discovered, and continues, probably, northwest, so as to embrace the Saganaw basin, and reach quite to the end of the peninsula, and embracing, perhaps, the Gypsum Islands of Lake Huron, ten miles northeast of Michilimackinac. All the brine springs and gypsum beds noticed in the region are situated in the line of this formation.
During the fall of 1821, a number of gentlemen at the Island of Michilimackinac united in the expenses of a tour for exploring the Skeboigon River, a stream which originates in the peninsula of Michigan, and flows into Lake Huron opposite the Island of Bois Blanc. The particular object of this party was to ascertain the precise locality of certain salt springs reported to exist upon that stream. They proceeded to the places indicated, and examined several springs more or less impregnated with salt, but reported that, owing to the jealousy and hostility of those bands of Indians who were found upon that stream, they were not enabled fully to accomplish the object in view.
There are several salt springs reported to exist near the Indian village of Wendagon, on the Sciawassa River, and others on the Titabawassa River, the principal tributaries of the Sagana. Little is, however, known respecting these springs, but the water is represented to be so strongly impregnated, that the Indians manufacture from it all the salt necessary for their villages.
Grand River Valley has also been mentioned among the localities of salt water and gypsum rocks.
Hints may thus be derived of value to the future commerce of the country. Scarcely any of the new states are without indications of the existence of salt. Every day is adding to the number of localities.
In the region west of the Mississippi, I was informed that salt occurs, in the crystallized form, in the territories of the Yanktons, who inhabit the flat country at the sources of the River St. Peter's. In certain parts of these plains, the salt exists on the surface. It is mixed with earth, in specimens brought to me, but crystallized in cubes, very imperfect, of a gray or grayish-white color. The Indians scrape it up from certain parts of the prairies or plains, where the salt water is prevented from draining off.
2. Alkaline Sulphate of Alumina.
This salt exists, in the form of efflorescences, in the cavities and fissures of rocks along the southeast parts of the shores of Sagana Bay, Lake Huron, and in the argillaceous formations at Erie, on Lake Erie, Pennsylvania.
These positions embrace the principal localities of minerals noticed. In travelling rapidly through a remote wilderness, there was but little opportunity to explore off the track; and the whole observation was confined to the mere surface of the country, which is much obscured by diluvial and alluvial formations.
It will be seen that the region of Lake Superior has been a fruitful field for mineralogical inquiry, and it is one which invites further exploration. Its mineralogy affords a variety of interesting substances which are objects of scientific research, and it may be anticipated to be the future theatre of extensive mining operations. The country northwest of Lake Superior, and the Upper Mississippi north of the Falls of St. Anthony—consisting mostly of upheaved primitive rocks and the pebble-drift, or diluvial, formations—has furnished but few subjects of mineralogical remark.
The district of country between the Falls of St. Anthony and Prairie du Chien, in common with the more southern portions of the Mississippi Valley, partakes of all the interest which the mineral kingdom presents in a calcareous and metalliferous country of secondary formation. It has added considerably to my collection. It is probable the Rivers St. Peter's, St. Croix, and Chippeway would well reward exploration; but the mines of Dubuque particularly invite a mineralogical survey. Their future importance cannot fail to be duly appreciated.
If the country has put on an aspect unfavorable to mineralogy, its geological features have been observed to sustain its interest.
Much of the interest growing out of the examination, for the first time, of the mineralogy and natural history of the country, is such as to commend itself, in an especial manner, to the consideration of men of science, and of associations devoted to scientific details, rather than the department of a government. To these former, nature is a storehouse of facts, and a perpetual anxiety is felt by this class of observers to know the range, not only of our rock formations, but of our plants, shells, fossils, and other classes of objects in our physical geography. Such desires I have endeavored, as far as my means permitted, to gratify. The fresh-water conchology of the lakes and rivers visited was often attractive, when other objects excited little interest. The species collected in this department have been referred to the New York Lyceum of Natural History.
With these remarks, the result of an arduous and interesting journey through a part of the continent hitherto unexplored, I have the honor to conclude my report, and to terminate the trust confided to me.
I am, sir, with respect,
Your obedient servant,
HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT,
Geologist, &c. of the Ex. Exp.
VIII.
(A.)
A Report to the Senate of the United States, in Answer to a Resolution passed by this Body, respecting the Value and Extent of the Mineral Lands on Lake Superior.[ [235] By Henry R. Schoolcraft.
Sault Ste. Marie, October 1, 1822.
Sir: In reply to the inquiries, contained in a resolution of the Senate of the United States, respecting the existence of copper mines in the region of Lake Superior, inclosed to me in a note from the War Department, dated 8th May, 1822, I have the honor to submit to you the following facts and remarks:—
1. In relation to "the number, value, and position of the copper mines on the south shore of Lake Superior." The remote position of the country alluded to, the infrequency of communication, and the little reliance to be placed on information derived through the medium of the aborigines or of traders, who are wholly engrossed with other objects, presents an embarrassment at the threshold of this inquiry, which must be felt by every person who turns his attention to the subject. The information sought for demands a minute acquaintance with the natural features and mineral structure of the country, which can only be acquired by personal examination; and it is a species of research requiring more leisure, better opportunities, and a freer participation in personal fatigue, than usually falls to the share of tourists and travellers. Not only are those difficulties to be encountered which are inseparable from the collection of isolated facts in a new and unsettled country, but those, also, which are peculiar to the subject, connected as it is, at every stage of the inquiry, with the prejudices and superstitions of the Indian tribes. [B.] It can, therefore, excite little surprise that, after having been the theme of speculation for more than a century, and obtained the notice of several works of merit in Europe,[ [236] both the position and value of these mineral beds have continued to the present times to be but partially known. To ascertain more clearly their value and importance to the Republic were objects more particularly confided to me as a member of the expedition sent by the Indian Department, in the year 1820, to traverse and explore those regions. My report of the 6th of November of that year—a copy of which, marked A, is herewith transmitted—gives the result of that inquiry. After a lapse of two years, little can be added. Reflection and subsequent inquiry convince me that the facts advanced in that report will be corroborated by future observation. No circumstance has transpired which is calculated to prove that my suggestions with regard to the fertility and future importance of those mines are fallacious; on the contrary, all information tends to strengthen and confirm those suggestions. Specimens of pure and malleable copper continue to be brought in to me by the aborigines from that region, but it is not deemed necessary to particularize in this place the additional localities. It will be sufficient to observe, that the number of these new discoveries justifies the expectations that have been created respecting the metalliferous character of the region of the Ontonagon, and the south shore of Lake Superior. [C.]
I shall here add the result of an accurate analysis made upon a specimen of this copper at the mint of Utrecht, in the Netherlands, at the request of Mr. Eustis, minister plenipotentiary from the United States, who carried samples of the American copper to that country. The report of the inspector of the mint, which communicates the result of this analysis, has the following remarks upon the natural properties of this species of copper, and the mode of its production: "From every appearance, the piece of copper seems to have been taken from a mass that has undergone fusion. The melting was, however, not an operation of art, but a natural effect caused by a volcanic eruption. The stream of lava probably carried along in its course the aforesaid body of copper, that had formed into one collection, as fast as it was heated enough to run, from all parts of the mine. The united mass was probably borne in this manner to the place where it now rests in the soil. The crystallized form, observable everywhere on the original surface of the metal that has been left untouched or undisturbed, leads me to presume that the fusion it has sustained was by a process of nature; since this crystallized surface can only be supposed to have been produced by a slow and gradual cooling, whereby the copper assumed regular figures as its heat passed into other substances, and the metal itself lay exposed to the air.
"As to the properties of the copper itself, it may be observed that its color is a clear red; that it is peculiarly qualified for rolling and forging; and that its excellence is indicated by its resemblance to the copper usually employed by the English for plating. The dealers in copper call this sort Peruvian copper to distinguish it from that of Sweden, which is much less malleable. The specimen under consideration is incomparably better than Swedish copper, as well on account of its brilliant color as for the fineness of its pores and its extreme ductility. Notwithstanding, before it is used in manufactures, or for the coining of money, it ought to be melted anew, for the purpose of purifying it from such earthy particles as it may contain. The examination of the North American copper, in the sample received from his excellency the minister, by the operation of the cupel and test by fire, has proved that it does not contain the smallest particle of silver, gold, or any other metal." It is a coincidence worthy of remark, that the suggestions offered by the assayer respecting the volcanic origin of these masses of copper, are justified by the leading features of the Porcupine Mountains, and by the melted granites found upon the heights called Grande Sables and Ishpotonga.
2. The second and third inquiries of the resolution relate to "the names of the Indian tribes who claim the mines, and the practicability of extinguishing their title." By the treaty concluded at this post on the 16th of June, 1820, the Ojibwai[ [237] Indians cede to the United States four miles square of territory, bounded by the River St. Mary's, and including the portage around the falls.[ [238] This is the most northerly point to which the Indian title has been extinguished in the United States. The different bands of Ojibwais possess all the country northwest of this post, extending through Lake Superior to the sources of the Mississippi, where they are bounded by the Assennaboins, the Crees, and the Chippewyans of the Hudson Bay colony. Their lands extend down the Mississippi to the Sioux boundary, an unsettled line between the junction of the River De Corbeau and the Falls of St. Anthony. South of Lake Superior, they claim to the possessions of the Winnebagoes, on the Ouisconsin and Fox Rivers, and to those of the Pottawatamies and Ottoways, on Lake Michigan. The Wild Rice, or Monomonee Indians, are an integral part of the Ojibwai nation, deriving their name from the great reliance they place on the zizania aquatica as an article of food. They live in small, dispersed bands between the Ojibwais of the lake, and the Winnebagoes of Fox River. Those residing among the Ojibwais speak the same language, but with many peculiarities and corruptions on the waters of Green Bay. They claim the respective tracts upon which they are located. These are, principally, the valleys of the Fox and Monomonee Rivers, and the rice lands contiguous to the Fol. Avoine, Clam Lake, and Lac de Flambeau, which lie on the table-lands between Lake Superior and the Mississippi.
The right of soil to all that part of the Peninsula of Michigan not purchased by the United States is divided between the Ojibwais and the Ottoways. The former claim all the shores and islands of Lake Huron situated north of the Saganaw purchase, except those in the vicinity of Michilimackinac and the St. Martin, or Gypsum Islands, which were ceded by treaty on the 6th of July, 1820.[ [239] Their territories continue north, through the River St. Mary's, embracing the country on both banks, and the islands in the river, saving Drummond's Island, which is garrisoned by the British, and the Four Mile concession at the Sault or Falls, now occupied by a detachment of the United States' army. It is not deemed necessary to point out the limits of their territories with more precision, or to pursue them into the Canadas, where they are also very extensive. It will sufficiently appear, from this outline, that the discoveries of copper on the south shore of Lake Superior are upon their lands. That some of these discoveries have been made upon, or will be traced to, the possessions of the North Monomonees, is also probable.
With respect to the practicability of extinguishing the Indian title, no difficulty is to be apprehended. Living in small villages, or tribes of the same mark, scattered over an immense territory, and often reduced to great poverty by the failure of game and fish, it is presumed there would be a disposition among their chiefs and head men to dispose of portions of it. Those districts which most abound in minerals, presenting a rough and rocky surface, are the least valuable to them as hunting-grounds; and the goods and annuities which they would receive in exchange must be vastly more important to them than any game which these mineral lands now afford.
3. "The probable advantage which may result to the Republic from the acquisition and working of these mines." How far metallic mines, situated upon the public domain, may be considered as a source of national wealth, and what system of management is best calculated to produce the greatest advantages to the public revenue, are inquiries which are not conceived to be presented for consideration in this place; nor should I presume to offer any speculations upon topics which have been so often discussed, and so fully settled. In applying axioms, however, to a species of productive industry, the results of which are so very various under various situations, great caution is undoubtedly necessary; and it must appear manifest, on the slightest reflection, how much the comparative value of metallic mines, equally fertile and productive, ever depends upon situation and local advantages. Dismissing, therefore, all questions of abstract policy, I shall here adduce a few facts in relation to the fertility of these mineral beds, and their position with respect to a market—points upon which their value to the nation must ultimately turn.
That copper is abundantly found on the south shore of Lake Superior has been shown. It is unnecessary here to add to, or repeat the instances of its occurrence, or to urge, from an inspection of the surface, the fertility of subterranean beds. All the facts which I possess in relation to this subject are before you, and you will assign to them such importance as they merit. It is a subject upon which I have bestowed some reflection and much inquiry, superadded to limited opportunities of personal observation, and the result has led me to form a favorable estimate of their value and importance. It is not only certain that a prodigious number of masses of metallic copper are found along the borders of the lake, but every appearance authorizes a conclusion that they are only the indications of near and continuous veins. Some of these masses are of unexampled size, and all present metallic copper in a state of great purity and fineness. Of its ductile and excellent qualities for the purposes of coinage and sheathing, the analysis of Utrecht leaves no doubt. It is true that a mistaken idea has prevailed among travellers and geographers respecting the weight of the great mass of copper on the Ontonagon River; but it is, nevertheless, of extraordinary dimensions, and I have endeavored to show, from their works, how these errors have originated, and that the metal is disseminated throughout a much greater extent of country, and in masses of every possible form and size. Until my facts and data can, therefore, be proved to be fallacious, I must be permitted to consider these mines not only fertile in native copper and its congenerous species, but unparalleled in extent, and to recommend them as such to the notice of the Government.
But, whatever degree of incertitude may exist respecting the riches of these mines, their situation with respect to a market can admit of no dispute. As little can there be concerning the advantages which this situation presents for the purposes of mining and commerce. Let us compare it with that of other mines, and appeal to acknowledged facts for the decision. The value of a coal mine, a stone quarry, or a gypsum bed, often arises as much from its situation as its fertility. But the proposition may be reversed with respect to a metallic mine, the value of which to the proprietor arises more from its fertility and less from its situation. Gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, &c., when separated from the matrix of the mine, are so valuable that they can bear to be transported a long journey over land, and the most distant voyage by water. Their worth in coined money, produce, or manufactures, is not fixed in the particular circles of country where they are dug up, but depends upon the seaboard market, and embraces all countries. The silver of Mexico and Peru circulates throughout Europe, and is carried to China. It is no objection to those mines that they are situated in the Cordilleras, or upon the high table-lands of the American continent, and must be carried a thousand miles upon the backs of mules to the seaside. The very discovery of those mines has rendered many poor silver mines of Europe of no value, although possibly situated in the environs of the best silver markets in the world. It is the fertility, and not the situation of such mines, that constitutes their chief value; and it is so with many of the coarser metals.
The tin of the Island of Banka, and the Peninsula of Siam in Asia, and the copper of Japan, find their way to Europe, and are articles of commerce in the United States. The cobalt of Saxony is sent to Pekin, and the platina of Choco, to all parts of the world. In all these instances, the fertility of the mines compensates for every disadvantage of situation. But this principle is not alone confined to mines of tin, copper, &c.; it even holds true of the heavy and bulky articles of iron, lead, and salt. The lead of Missouri finds a market at New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, and will be carried to Europe. It is no objection that it must be conveyed in wagons forty miles from the interior, and sent a voyage of 3,000 miles in steamboats and merchant ships. The great fertility of the mines counterbalances the disadvantages of its remote position from the market, and it is the price of the metal in the market which always regulates its price at the mines. The malleable iron of Sweden is consumed on the summits of the Alleghany, although its strata are replete with iron ore, which is worked at numerous forges along the rivers which proceed from each side of it. It is believed that the salt springs of Onondaga, from their copiousness alone, would supply a vast portion of the interior and seaboard of the United States with salt, even if the facilities of water carriage had not been presented by the Erie Canal. The value of such mines and minerals ever depends as much upon the abundance as upon the favorable position of them. It is far otherwise with quarries of stone, gypsum, marl, fossil coal, &c., whose contiguity to a good market establishes their value. No abundance of these articles would justify a land carriage of one hundred miles. They constitute a species of mining, the profits and value of which increases in the ratio of the surrounding population, and as the country advances in improvements. But this advantage is far less sensibly felt, and cannot be considered essential to the successful working of mines of silver, copper, &c. Neither the remote position, therefore, of the Lake Superior copper mines, nor the want of a surrounding population, present objections of that force which would at first seem to exist; and it is confidently believed that, if their fertility is such as facts indicate, they may be opened and wrought with eminent advantage to the Republic. But let us examine their situation with respect to a market, and compare it with that of other mines of the same metal, and of some of the coarser metals, which bear a considerable land, and the most distant water carriage. To favor the inquiry, let it be granted for the moment that proximity of situation to a market, or free water carriage, are indispensable to the success and value of the most fertile mines.
Assuming the confluence of the Ontonagon River with Lake Superior (which is apparently the centre of the mine district) as the place where the metal is first to be embarked for market, it must be carried down the lake 300 miles to the Sault or rapids of St. Mary's. Here, if it is in barges, it may descend the rapids in perfect safety, as is the invariable practice of the traders on arriving with their annual returns of furs and skins from the north. If in vessels, it must be transferred either into boats or carts, and carried half a mile to the foot of the rapids, where it will again be embarked in vessels, and transported through the Lakes Huron, St. Clair, and Erie, and their connecting straits, to Buffalo, a distance of 650 miles. The progress made in the construction of the great canal which is to connect the lakes and Atlantic, is such as to leave no doubt upon any reasonable mind of the full completion of that work with the close of the year 1824. Through this channel, the transportation is to be continued in boats or barges, by a voyage of 353 miles, to the Hudson at Albany; thence a sloop navigation of 144 miles, which, for speed and freedom from risk, is perhaps unequalled in all America, takes it into the harbor of New York, making the entire distance, from the mouth of the Ontonagon, 1,447 miles. From New York it is distributed to our naval depots, and to the markets of Europe. It is exchanged for the lead of Missouri, the iron of Sweden, or the silver of Mexico; and the same ready communication transports the return cargo to Buffalo, from whence the commerce is extended, by means of the lakes, throughout western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and the interminable regions of the north. Thus it is seen that, when the Erie Canal is completed, a free and direct water communication, from the mines to one of the best markets in America, will exist, in which the rapids of St. Mary's are the only interruption, and this is only an interruption to large vessels. Not only so, but the Ontonagon River may be ascended many miles with vessels of light burden, and thus the copper of Lake Superior, wafted from the heart of the interior, and from the base of the Porcupine Mountains, into the harbors of New York, Philadelphia, &c. Of this whole distance, 1,047 miles are now navigated by the largest class of river craft and lake schooners; the balance of the distance is the length of the Erie Canal. (See [Note D.])
Let it be recollected that there are no mines of copper situated upon the margin of the sea, and that every quintal of sheet copper, bolts, nails, &c., which we receive from Great Britain, Russia, Sweden, or Japan, is transported a greater or less distance on turnpikes or canals, before it reaches the place of shipment. The richest copper mines of the Russian empire are seated on the summits of the Uralian Mountains; those of Fahlun, in Sweden, and Cornwall, in England, are scarcely more favored as to position; and, owing to a want of coal, all the ores raised at the latter are transported into Wales to be smelted.[ [240] But we need not resort to Europe for instances. All the lead raised at the fertile mines in Missouri is transported an average distance of forty miles in carts and wagons before it reaches the banks of the Mississippi. Steamboats take it to New Orleans, a distance, by the shortest computation, of 1,000 miles. But it must still pass through the Gulf of Mexico, and encounter the perils of the Capes of Florida, and a voyage of 2,000 miles along the coast of the United States, before it reaches its principal marts. The average cost of transporting a hundredweight of lead from Mine au Breton and Potosi to the banks of the Mississippi, during the year 1818, was seventy-five cents. The distance is thirty-six miles. The price of conveying the same quantity from the storehouses at Herculaneum and St. Genevieve to New Orleans, by steamboats, was seventy cents. The distance exceeds 1,000 miles. Hence, it costs more to transport a given quantity thirty-six miles by land than to convey it 1,000 by water. These rates have probably varied since, but the proportionate expense of land carriage, compared to that of water, will remain the same. A quintal of copper may, therefore, be transported from the mines of Superior to Buffalo or Lockport, in New York, for the same sum required to convey an equal quantity of lead from Potosi to St. Genevieve. If we consider the city of New York as the market of both, no hesitancy or doubt can be experienced as to the decided and palpable advantages possessed by the northern mines. It is only necessary to adduce these facts; the conclusions are inevitable. In every point of view, the distance of these mines from the market presents no solid objection to their being explored with profit to the nation.
Pig copper, which is the least valuable form in which this metal is carried to market, is now quoted in the Atlantic cities at 19 cents per pound; sheathing, at 27; brazier's, at 32. I have no data at hand to show the amount of these articles consumed in the United States, and for which we are annually transmitting immense sums to enrich foreign States. But those who best appreciate the advantages of commerce will readily supply the estimate. It would be an interesting inquiry to ascertain how much of the sums yearly paid for sheathing copper, bolts, nails, engravers' plates, &c., is contributed to the wealth of the respective foreign States who possess mines of this metal. We can look back to a period in the history of Great Britain, when that power did not contribute one pound of copper to the commerce of Europe. During a period of nine years, closing with the memorable year (in American history) of 1775, the produce of the copper mines of Cornwall was 2,650 tons of fine copper. (See [Note E.]) Since that time, the yearly returns of those mines exhibit a constant increase; and the copper mines of Great Britain are now the most valuable in the world. The amount produced by the mines of Cornwall and Devon, after deducting the charges of smelting, for the single year of 1810, was 969,376 pounds sterling. (See [Note F.]) The clear profits of the Dolgoath mine, one of the richest in Cornwall, for a period of five months, during the year 1805, was £18,000, which is at the rate of £43,200, or $192,000, per annum. Next to Great Britain, the most considerable mines of Europe are those of Russia, Austria, Sweden, and Westphalia, as it was in 1808. Of less importance are those of Denmark, France, Saxony, Prussia, and Spain. The proportion in which the British mines exceed those of the most favored European nation is as 200,000 x 67,000. (See [Note G.])
There is another consideration connected with this subject which is worthy of remark. Should it be inquired what would be the effects of the purchase of these mines upon the condition of the Indian tribes, the reply is obvious. It would have the most beneficial tendency. They would not only profit by an exchange of their waste lands for goods, implements of husbandry, the stipulated services of blacksmiths, teachers, &c., but the intercourse would have a happy tendency to allay those bitter feelings which, through the instigation of the British authorities in the Canadas, they have manifested, and still continue to feel, in degree, towards the United States. The measures which the President has recently directed to be pursued to assuage these feelings of hostility, and to induce them to cherish proper sentiments of friendship and respect, are already in a train of execution that bids fair for success. Continued exertions, and the necessary and proper means, are all that seem necessary to confirm and complete the effect; and whatever measures have a tendency to increase the intercourse of American citizens with these "remote tribes," and to give them a true conception of the power and justice, and the pacific and benevolent policy of our Government, must favor and hasten such a result.
I have the honor to be, sir,
With the highest respect,
Your most obedient servant,
HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT,
U. S. Indian Agent at the Sault Ste. Marie.
Hon John C. Calhoun,
Secretary of War, Washington.
Notes.
(B.)
Among the numerous superstitions which the Indian tribes entertain, that respecting mines is not the least remarkable. They are firmly impressed with a belief that any information communicated to the whites, disclosing the position of mines or metallic treasures situated upon their grounds, is displeasing to their manitos, and even to the Great Spirit himself, from whom they profess to derive every good and valuable gift; and that this offence never fails to be visited upon them in the loss of property, in the want of success in their customary pursuits or pastimes, in untimely death, or some other singular disaster or untoward event. This opinion, although certainly not a strange one to be cherished by a barbarous people, is, nevertheless, believed to have had its origin in the transactions of an era which is not only very well defined, but must ever remain conspicuous in the history of the discovery and settlement of America. It is very well known that the precious metals were the principal objects which led the Spanish invaders to penetrate into the interior of Mexico and Peru, and ultimately to devastate and conquer the country, to plunder and destroy its temples, and to tax and enslave its ill-fated inhabitants. It is equally certain that, to escape these scenes of cruelty and oppression, many tribes and fragments of tribes, when further resistance became hopeless, fled towards the north, preferring the enjoyment of liberty and tranquillity upon the chilly borders of the northern lakes, to the pains of servitude in the mild and delightful valleys of Mexico, and the golden plains of the Incas. In this way, many tribes who originally migrated from the north, along the Pacific Ocean, to the Gulf of California, and thence over all New Spain, were returned towards the north over the plains of Texas and the valley of the Mississippi; those tribes nearest the scenes of the greatest atrocities always pressing upon the remoter and less civilized, who, in turn, pressed upon the nations less enlightened than themselves, and finally drove them into the unfrequented forests of the north. Among these terrified tribes, the traditions of the Ojibwais affirm that their ancestors came, and that they originally dwelt in a country destitute of snows. Many tribes who now speak idioms of their language were left upon the way, and have since taken distinctive names. Among these, are the Pottawatamies, the Ottoways, &c. The latter formerly were, as they still remain, the agriculturists. The Miamis and Shawnees, whose languages bear some affinity, preceded them in their flight. The Winnebagoes, speaking a separate and original tongue, came later, and preserve more distinct traditions of their migration. All these tribes carried with them the strong prejudices and fixed hatred excited by the cruelty, rapacity, and cupidity of their European conquerors; and, above all, of that insatiable thirst for gold and silver which led the Spaniards to sack their towns, burn their temples, and torture their people. Cruelty and injustice of so glaring a character must have made upon their minds too deep an impression ever to be forgotten, or completely erased from their traditions. To that memorable epoch we must, therefore, look for the origin of that cautious and distrustful disposition which these tribes have since manifested with regard to the mines and minerals situated upon their lands; and the circumstance seems to offer an abundant excuse, if not a justification, for those prevarications and evasions which present a continual series of embarrassment to every person who seeks through their aid to develop the mineral resources, or describe the natural productions, of their territories. Hence, too, the cause why they are prone to imagine that all mineral or metallic substances obtained or sought upon their lands, are susceptible of being converted or transmuted into the precious metals.
(C.)
The following additional localities of native copper, derived from sources entitled to respect, and accompanied, in some instances, by specimens of the metal, may here be given:—
1. Grand Menou, or Isle Royal, Lake Superior. Captain——, of the schooner——, in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, on Lake Superior, describes this island as affording frequent masses of copper. While becalmed off its shores in the spring of 1822, and, afterwards, in coasting along the island for a distance of one hundred miles, his men frequently went ashore, and never failed to bring back with them lumps of metallic copper, which they found promiscuously scattered among the fragments of rock. These were more abundant in approaching its southwestern extremity, where they unite in representing it to exist in a solid vein. Specimens of limpid quartz, chalcedony, and striped agate, were also brought to me from this island. [J. S. J. J.]
2. On the extremity of the great peninsula, called by the natives Meenaiewong, or Keweena Point, which forms so prominent a feature in the physiognomy of Lake Superior. It occurs in the detached form. [J. H. J. J.]
3. At Point aux Beignes, which is the east cape of the entrance into L'Ance Quewiwenon. A mass from this place was raised from the sandstone rock, which predominates there. [J. Y. B.]
4. At Caug Wudjieu, or the Porcupine Mountains, Lake Superior; in masses, enveloped with a green crust, along the banks of the Carp, or Neemaibee River, which originates in these mountains. [W. M. G. Y. J. J.]
5. On the banks of Lac Courterroile. This lake lies near the source of the River Broule, or Cawesacotai, which enters Lake Superior near La Pointe. It occurs in the alluvial soil, which is a kind of loamy earth, with pebbles intermixed, but of a rich quality, and timbered with beech and maple. It is found mostly in small, flat masses, more or less oxidated. [B. G. J. G. Y.]
6. In a vein on the shore of Lake Superior, between La Riviere de Mort and St. John's, a little to the west of Presque Isle. [J. J.]
7. On the northeast branch of the Ontonagon River. [J. H.]
8. In the precipitous bluffs called Le Portail, and the Pictured Rocks. A green matter oozes from the seams in these rocks, and forms a kind of stalactites, which is apparently a carbonate of copper. [G. Y.]
These localities embrace a range of more than two hundred miles along the south shore of Lake Superior, which proves how intimately this metal and its ores are identified with the rocks and the soil of that region.
In all our calculations respecting the position and advantages of these mines, too much stress cannot be laid upon the facilities of the lake navigation. It is believed that a ton of merchandise, or a barrel bulk, can be transported through the lakes at the same rates that are paid in the coasting trade of the United States. Nor is the risk greater. The best data which I can command, induce me to conclude that a quintal of copper can be conveyed from the place of shipment on Lake Superior, to the city of New York, for one dollar. The present price of transportation, for a barrel bulk, from Buffalo to Mackina, may be stated, on the average of freights, at 8s., New York. The mean weight of a barrel bulk, taking flour as the standard, may be safely put down at 200 lbs. gross, being 50 cents per cwt. But it must be recollected that there is no return freight; and, consequently, that this sum covers the expenses not only of the outward and return voyage, but still leaves a profit to the owner. Messrs. Gray and Griswold, sutlers of the 2d regiment, paid 9s. 6d., New York, per barrel bulk, from Buffalo to the Sault. This gives a result of 59 cents per cwt. But, if a return cargo could be obtained, one-half of this sum would afford an equal profit on the voyage; and it is believed that the article of bar copper could at all times be conveyed from the Sault to Buffalo for 20 cents per cwt. Being a very convenient species of ballast, it would oftentimes be taken in lieu of stone, and, consequently, cost no greater sum than the price of carrying it on board. But the facilities and cheapness of the lake navigation cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by stating the price of provisions at the post of St. Mary's, every article of which is carried from 300 to 700 miles through the lakes. The following statement of the assistant commissary has been politely furnished at my request:—
Sault Ste. Marie, October, 1822.
Dear Sir: Agreeably to your request, I send you a statement of the actual cost of subsistence stores furnished at this post for the use of troops at present making the military establishment, ordered by the Government to this place.
The prices of the several articles below enumerated are at a small advance on the stores of the settlers outside of the cantonment.
The expenses of subsisting, or rather of maintaining, a garrison at this place will be as small, if not less, per annum, than at any other frontier post in our country. The provisions for the soldier cost as little, I believe, as at any other post, and next year we shall be able to raise all the forage for the use of our beef cattle, and the horses and oxen of the quartermaster's department.
I am, dear sir, yours, &c.,
W. BICKER,
A. C. S. U. S. A.
Statement of the Cost of United States Subsistence Stores at the Sault de Ste. Marie, 1822.
| Cents. | |
| Pork, per pound | 41/4 |
| Flour, per pound | 19/10 |
| Whiskey, per gallon | 29 |
| Fresh beef, per pound | 61/2 |
| Vinegar, per gallon | 22 |
| Salt, per bushel | 90 |
| Soap, per pound | 10 |
| Candles, per pound | 201/2 |
| Beans, per quart | 47/10 |
The total cost of a soldier's ration is 9 cents and 1 mill per diem.
WALTER BICKER,
A. C. S. U. S. A.
H. R. Schoolcraft, Esq., U. S. I. Agent.
(E.)
Statement of the Returns of Copper Ores Smelted at the Mines of Cornwall (Eng.) from 1726 to 1775.—[Rees's Cyclopedia.]
| Periods. | Tons of ore. | Average price per ton. | Amount. | Annual quantity of fine copper. |
| 1726 to 1735 | 64,800 | £ 7 15 10 | £ 473,500 | 700 tons |
| 1736 to 1745 | 75,520 | 78 6 | 560,106 | 830 |
| 1746 to 1755 | 98,790 | 78 0 | 731,457 | 1,080 |
| 1756 to 1765 | 169,699 | 76 6 | 1,243,045 | 1,800 |
| 1766 to 1775 | 264,273 | 6 14 6 | 1,778,337 | 2,650 |
(F.)
Statement of the Produce of the Mines of Cornwall and Devon (Eng.) for a period of four years, ending with 1811.
| Tons of ore. | Fine copper. | Average standard per ton. | Annual amount after deducting charges of smelting. | ||||||||
| Tons. | cwt. | qrs. | Tons. | cwt. | qrs. | lbs. | £ | £ | s. | ||
| 1808 | Cornwall | 73,434 | 2 | 1 | 7,118 | 5 | 1 | 17 | 107 | 781,348 | 16 |
| Devon | 3,725 | 0 | 0 | 7,118 | 5 | 1 | 17 | ||||
| 1809 | Cornwall | 72,038 | 12 | 2 | 6,972 | 17 | 0 | 17 | 122 | 875,784 | 2 |
| Devon | 3,210 | 0 | 0 | 365 | 1 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| 1810 | Cornwall | 80,238 | 14 | 3 | 7,006 | 13 | 2 | 5 | 141 | 969,376 | 19 |
| Devon | |||||||||||
| 1811 | Cornwall | 73,57 | 0 | 1 | 6,272 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 125 | 769,379 | 4 |
| Devon | |||||||||||
(G.)
Table of the Annual Quantity of Copper raised from the Earth in Different Countries, in Quintals—the Quintal valued at 100 lbs.
| 1. | England | 200,000 |
| 2. | Russia | 67,000 |
| 3. | Austria, including Bohemia, Gallicia, Hungary, Transylvania, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Salzburg, and Moravia | 60,000 |
| 4. | Sweden | 22,000 |
| 5. | Westphalia, in 1808 | 17,229 |
| 6. | States of Denmark | 8,500 |
| 7. | Bavaria, including the Tyrol | 3,000 |
| 8. | France | 2,500 |
| 9. | Saxony, in 1808 | 1,320 |
| 10. | Prussia, as left by the treaty of Tilsit | 337 |
| 11. | Spanish European mines | 309 |
| Total, | 382,186 |
(H.)
I shall here give the synonoma for this tribe of Indians, which appears to have been first recognized by the United States as an independent tribe by Wayne's treaty of 1795,[ [241] under the name of Chipewa. This name has been retained in all subsequent treaties with them, not, however, without some discrepance in the orthography. These variations are chiefly marked by the introduction of the letter p at the beginning of the second syllable, or the vowel y annexed to the third; producing Chip-pe-wa, Chip-pe-way, and Chip-e-way. The French missionaries and traders, whose policy it was to discard the names of the aboriginal tribes from their conversations, bestowed upon this tribe, at a very early period, the nom de guerre of Saulteurs, or Sauteurs, from the Sault or Falls of St. Mary's, which was the ancient seat of this tribe—a name which is still retained by the Canadians, and by many of the American traders. Among the early French writers, they were also sometimes denominated Outchipouas. There is as little uniformity among travellers and geographers. Pinkerton, Darby, Morse, Carver, Mackenzie, and Herriot, either employ the word according to the orthography of Wayne's treaty, or with the modifications above noticed. The name of Chippewyans, employed by Mackenzie, relates to a tribe residing north and west of the sources of the Mississippi, who speak a language having no affinity, and are a distinct people. Henry, who was well versed in the Chippewa language, also conforms to the popular usage, but observes that the true name, as pronounced by themselves, is Ojibwa.
Having taken pains to ascertain and fix the pronunciation of this word, I have not hesitated to introduce it into my correspondence and official accounts; but I am aware of my great temerity in so doing. Popular prejudices, and several of the authorities above cited, stand opposed to the proposed innovation. The continued use of the word "Chippewa" is also sanctioned by a name entitled to conclusive respect. "I write the word in this way," observes the Executive of Michigan, "because I am apprehensive the orthography is inveterately fixed, and not because I suppose it is correct." Still, there are reasons for changing it. Justice to this unfortunate race requires it. Since the popular apathy to their condition is such that every remembrance of their actual customs, manners, and traditions will probably perish with them, and their name, ere long, be all that is left, it is at least incumbent upon us to transmit that to posterity in its true sound—as the fathers and sachems pronounced it. If, then, there is an acknowledged error in this respect, shall we hesitate to correct it?
IX.
Rapid Glances at the Geology of Western New York, west of the Rome Summit, in 1820.[ [242]
Rock Formations.—1. Assuming the area of the most eastwardly head of the Onondaga Valley, the Wood Creek, and the Rome Summit, and the valley of the Niagara, with an indefinite extent laterally, to form the limits of this inquiry; it is in coincidence with all known facts to say that it is a secondary region, consisting of the sedimentary and semi-crystalline strata, the lines of which are perfectly horizontal. Colored sandstone, generally red, forms the lowest observed stratum.
Wherever streams have worn deep channels, they either disclose this rock or its adjuncts, the grits, or silicious sinter. It is apparent in the chasm at Niagara Falls, about half a mile below the cataract. It is often seen on the surface of the country, or buried slightly beneath the soil. In color, hardness, and other characters, there is a manifest variety. But, considered as a "formation," no doubt can exist of its unity. Its thickness can only be conjectured, as no labor has, so far as we know, penetrated through it.
Judging from observations made in Cattaraugus County, in 1818, the coal measures have been completely swept from this area.
2. Next in point of altitude, is the series of dark, carbonaceous, shelly slate rock. The thickness of this formation, as indicated at Niagara, cannot be less than ninety feet. It is also often a surface-rock in the district, forming portions of the banks of lakes, streams, &c. It is characterized by organic remains of nascent species. Portions of it also disclose rounded masses of pre-existing rocks.
3. Last in the order of superposition, is the secondary limestone formation. It is, most commonly, of a dark, sedimentary aspect. It is not invariably so, but portions of it have a shining, semi-crystalline fracture. Shades of color also vary considerably, but it never, in the scale of colors, exceeds a whitish-gray. Viewed at different localities, the mass is either compact, fetid, shelly, or silicious. Much of it produces good quicklime. It is often rendered "bastard," as the phrase is, by argillaceous and earthy impurities. Organic impressions, and remains of sea shells and coarse corals are frequent. Encrinites give some portions of it the appearance of eyed or dotted secondary marble. The occurrence of a hard variety of hornstone, which is not flint, is apparently confined to the compact, fetid variety. This formation, like the two preceding, may be found to consist of separate strata. Localities, joining, overlaying, substrata, mineral contents, organic species, &c., require observation. The following notices are added.
Geological Changes.—The evidences which are furnished of ancient submersion, which has "changed and overturned" vast portions of the solid land, are neither few nor equivocal. They are seen as well in the rock strata as the alluvial soils. The most elevated hills and the lowest valleys are equally productive of the evidences of extensive changes. The whole aspect of the country seems to attest to the ancient dominion of water. But the most striking proof of its agency is, perhaps, found in the sea-shells, polypi, and crustacea, which are preserved, in their outlines, in solid strata. Some of these are most vivid in their shapes and ray-like markings, particularly the univalve shells.
A subsequent change, in the surface of the country, is indicated by the marks of attrition and watery action upon the faces of these rocks, in situations greatly elevated above the present water-levels. This action must, consequently, be referred to a period when extensive submersions, in the nature of lakes or semi-seas, existed; for there is no power in present lakes and streams, however swelled and reinforced by rains or melting snows, to reach even a moiety of the elevation of these ancient water-marks. It is to the era of these last submersions that we are encouraged, by evidences, to look, as the disturbing cause which has buried trees, leaves, and bones in alluvial soils.
Action of Water.—In examining some portions of the flat lands of Ontario County, such as the township of Phelps, there are strata of a fine sedimentary soil, such as might be expected to result from the settlings of water not greatly agitated. The bottoms of mill-ponds afford an analogous species of soil. In these level districts, there are also not unfrequently observed fields of bare flat rock, of the limestone species, which is checkered in its surface, conveying the idea of their having formed a flooring to some former lake. An appearance of this kind may be seen a few hundred yards from the meeting-house in Phelps. The rock, in this instance, is a carbonate of lime, and affords organic remains.
The Oak Openings, in Erie County, are a kind of natural meadows or prairies. Many suppose them to have been ancient clearings; but of this the Indians have no tradition, and the evidences of such a settlement are by no means satisfactory. In many places, on these extensive openings, there are naked and barren layers of calcareous rock, whose surface exhibits appearances analogous to those in Ontario. The limestone is, however, of a darker color, and contains numerous imbedded nodules of hornstone, and it emits a fetid odor on breaking.
In crossing the elevated calcareous highlands, between Danville and Arkport, in Steuben County, we perceive in the bluff rocks which bound the valley of the Conestoga River, at an elevation of perhaps two hundred feet above its bed, horizontal water-marks, deeply impressed upon the face of the rocks, as if the waters had formerly stood at that level; and it is impossible to resist the conviction, in travelling over this rugged district of country, that it has not been totally submerged by waters, which have been suddenly drawn off, but by gradual or periodical exhaustions, standing for many ages at different levels.
Slate Rocks.—These were, not inaptly, denominated "brittle slate," by Dr. Mitchell, in 1809. Brittleness is their pervading character; and it is owing to this quality, in a formation of great thickness, that the action of the water at Niagara Falls is of so very striking a character. There is no portion of the Niagara slate solid enough to be used for building stone. It is uniformly shelly, and exhibits, even in hand specimens, its reproduced character.[ [243] Those portions of the general formation which are solid constitute silicious slate. A locality of this variety may be seen at the Halfway House, eight miles east of Canandaigua.
Seneca Lake.—This clear and picturesque lake has its bed in the secondary formations, and may be referred to as exhibiting localities of them. Its upper parts afford the compact limestone in quadrangular blocks. Large portions of its margin consist of the brittle carbonaceous slate. The shores, from the vicinity of Rose's Farm to Appletown, are little else but a continuous bank of the slate. On the opposite coast, it is also visible at various localities below the Crooked Lake inlet. Cashong Creek may be particularly referred to. A short ascent of its valley brings the spectator into a scene where the walled masses of slaty rock assume a character of grandeur. Among the recent portions which have been thrown into the valley, may be seen masses having large species of the stem-like organic remains, which indicate its newness as a formation. Here are also disclosed orbicular masses, and pebbles of other rocks, imbedded in the slate. These prove it to be—what its texture would, in other places, indicate—a secondary slate.
The order of position on the banks of this lake is the same as at Niagara; but the sandstone is not apparent above the water line. Its existence, in the bed of the lake, may be satisfactorily inferred, from the masses of yellow coarse sand which are driven up at the foot of the lake, and particularly around its outlet. When the winds prevail, the water is driven violently against this part of the shore. As it is an alluvial flat, they soon surmount the stated margin, and produce a partial inundation. On their recession, wreathes of sand remain.
Diluvial Elevations.—Bounding the alluvial plain of the Seneca outlet westward, there is a series of remarkable wave-like ridges, whose direction is parallel to that of the lake. On the declivity-stop of the first of these ridges, stands the village of Geneva, the buildings of which are thus displayed in an amphitheatric manner above the clear expanse of the lake. The substratum of these ridges is an argillaceous, compact soil of the eldest formation. Some parts of it are a stiff clay, and yield septaria; but there is no considerable portion of it, which has been examined, wholly destitute of primitive boulders and pebbles. Little doubt can remain but that it is the result of the broken-down slaty rock mixed with the extraneous and far-fetched primitive masses. They are conclusive of its diluvial character. I have attentively examined this formation, in the section of it exposed on the shores of the lake between the village of Geneva and Two-mile Point. All its solid, stony contents are piled along the margin of the lake, the soil being completely washed away. Granite, quartz, and trap pebble-stones and boulders, are here promiscuously strewn with recent debris. Over the argillaceous deposit is spread a mantle of newer soil, of unequal depth and character, which forms, exclusively, the theatre of farming and horticultural labors.
White Springs.—On the declivity of one of these parallel ridges, at the distance of two miles from the lake, is found an extensive bed of white marl. This deposit, which is on the estate of the late Judge Nicholas, covers many acres, and yields so copious a spring of pure water that it is sufficient, at the distance of about three hundred yards from its issue, to turn a gristmill. There are to be found in this bed of marl several species of helix and voluta. The marl is generally covered with an alluvial deposit of two feet in depth. The depth of the marl itself is unexplored. Is not this marl the result of decomposed sea shells?
Beds of Quartzose Sand.—In certain parts of the Seneca Valley are found limited deposits of a white quartzose sand, in a state of comparative purity. This substance is capable of being readily vitrified by the addition of alkaline fluxes, and is thus converted into glass. Its existence, as a local deposit, beneath separate strata of alluvial soil, supporting a growth of trees and shrubs, is such as to render it probable that the present stream, in its exhausted state, could have had no agency in producing these deposits. If we are compelled to look to a former condition of the waters passing off through this valley, as affording the requisite power of deposit, we are then carried back to an era in the geology of the country which we must refer to, to account for by far the greater number of changes in all its recent soils. Indeed, wherever we examine these soils, out of the range comprehended between high- and low-water mark, on any existing lake or stream, there will be found occasion to resort to the agency of more general and anterior submersions. A few localities may be appealed to.
Fossil Wood.—In digging a well in the Genesee Valley, one mile east of the river (at Hosmer's), part of the trunk of a tree, of mature growth, was found at the depth of forty-one feet below the surface. The soil was a loose sand mixed with gravel. The position is more elevated than the flats, so called.
Antlers.—A large pair of elk's horns were discovered in an excavation made for the foundation of a mill at Clyde, in Seneca County. They were imbedded in alluvial soil, ten feet below the surface. This surface had been cleared of elm and other forest trees of mature growth. Near the same place, logs of wood were found at the depth of fourteen feet. These discoveries were made in the valley of Clyde River, which is formed by the junction of the Canandaigua Outlet with Mud Creek.
Frogs Enclosed in the Geological Column.—At Carthage, on the Genesee, twelve or fifteen frogs were found in excavating a layer of compact clay marl, about nine feet below the surface. The position is several hundred feet above the bed of the Genesee River, to which elevation no one, after viewing the spot, will deem it probable its waters could have reached, this side of the diluvian era.
A frog was dug out of the solid rock, at Lockport, Niagara County, by the workmen engaged in excavating the canal. It was enveloped by the limestone which abounds in cavities filled with crystals of strontian and dog-tooth spar. It came to life for a few moments, and then expired. There was no aperture by which it could possibly communicate with the atmospheric air. The cavity was only large enough to retain it, without allowing room for motion.
The inclosure of animals of the inferior classes in the sedimentary strata, and even in the most solid substance of rock, is a fact which has been frequently noticed, without, however, any very satisfactory theory having been given of the process, at least to common apprehension. Vide [Addenda], for some further notices of this kind.
Fossil Vegetation.—A well was dug in the lower part of the village of Geneva, in 1820, which disclosed, at the depth of thirteen feet, the branches and buds of a cedar-tree. They were found lying across the excavation, and in the sides of it; and were in excellent preservation. No one could conjecture in what age they had been buried. But this discovery would seem to establish the position that the catastrophe occurred in the spring.
Madrepore.—A madrepore, measuring eight inches in diameter, was found in the upland soil of Caledonia, Genesee County. Smaller specimens of the same species occur in that township. Madrepores of a large size have also been found imbedded in the soil, or lying on the surface, in various places in Cattaraugus and Alleghany counties. They are locally denominated petrified wasps' nests. The lands containing these loose fossil remains are contiguous to, or based on, secondary rocks at considerable elevations.
Boulders and Primitive Gravel.—But the most abundant evidences of diluvial action are furnished by the masses of foreign crystalline rocks which are scattered, in blocks of various sizes, on the surface of the soil, or imbedded at all depths within it. Primitive rocks are foreign to the district, and these masses could not, therefore, have resulted from local disintegration. They must have been transported from a distance. They required not only an adequate cause for their removal, but one commensurate with the effects. Such a cause Cuvier supposes, in discussing the general question, may have existed in eruptions, or in the action of oceanic masses of water, operating at an ancient period.
The latter opinion appears to be generally adopted. Dr. Mitchell, in reference to northwestern boulders, attributes their distribution over secondary regions to the draining of interior seas or lakes. Mr. Hayden, in his Geological Essays, refers them to the action of oceanic currents setting "from north and east to south and west."
Subordinate and Equivalent Strata.—These constitute the most intricate subjects of reference. They are either adjuncts or residuary deposits of leading formations. But their order, as accompanying series, must sometimes be sought for by a previous determination of the formations themselves. Could we certainly know, for instance, that the sandstone of Western New York is or is not the true coal-sandstone, or the limestone is or is not the carboniferous limestone, it would at once direct to positive eras, and serve to impart confidence in the prediction of unknown deposits of an important character. But, in order to fix the formations, it is often the safest mode of procedure to employ the subordinate and local deposits as evidences of the character of the formations embracing them.
Gypsum.—A stratum of gypsum of the plaster of Paris kind—that is, consisting of an admixture of the carbonate with the sulphate of lime—occurs on the banks of the Canandaigua outlet. It has been chiefly explored in the township of Phelps, Ontario. In visiting the principal bed (1820), I found the following order of deposits composing the banks of the outlet:—
1. Alluvial soil of a dark, arenaceous, and mellow character, having small stones of the primitive kind sparingly interspersed, two and a half to three feet. Cultivated in improved farms.
2. Shelly limestone, of an earthy, dull-gray color and loose texture, in layers, three feet.
3. Limestone of a more firm character, but still shelly, or rather slaty, fissile, and easily quarried, six feet. This stratum contains iron pyrites in a decomposed state. Also, nodular or kidney-shaped masses of what the quarrymen call plaster-eggs—apparently snowy gypsum.
4. Plaster of Paris, ten feet. This stratum yields granular, earthy, fibrous, and foliated gypsum. It is the first two varieties which are quarried. In some places, the mass is firm enough to admit of blasting. In others, it is loose and veiny, and is readily broken up with iron bars and sledges. Portions of it appear to consist of a shelly limestone identical with No. 2. They are rejected in quarrying.
5. Limestone similar to No. 3, four feet.
At this depth it is covered by the waters of the outlet. How deep it extends is uncertain. The rapids at the village of Vienna are caused by shelving strata of this limestone.
There is a suite character in these strata which appears to constitute them a single deposit. The plaster-bed at Canasaraga exists in a ledge more elevated in reference to the local stream, and presents a broader section of the limestone. The shades of difference which are observable in its color and texture, do not appear to indicate a difference of geological era. Nor do appearances denote, for the calcareous formation which embraces these beds, much antiquity in the scale of secondary rocks.
Saliferous Red Clay-marl.—Examinations, at various points, render it a probable supposition that the red clay-marl of western New York is the equivalent for the new red sandstone, in positions where the latter is—as it often is—wanting. It is extensively deposited in the upland soils, in the range of the salt rock and gypsum counties, from the summit grounds of Oneida County west. It may be seen in various stages of the decomposition. I have more attentively examined it on the upper parts of the Scanado[ [244] and Oneida creeks. Large areas of it exist in Westmoreland, Verona, and Vernon townships, and bordering the valley grounds of the Oneida reservation, and the northerly portions of Sullivan County. The existence of salt water might, apparently, be searched for with as much probability of success, in the district thus indicated, as at more westerly points.
Coal-Formation.—With a strong predisposition to regard our leading sandstone and limestone surface-formations as members of the "independent" or true coal-formation, inquiry has led me to relinquish the impression that they will, to any great degree, be found to yield this mineral. If the sandstone is—as facts indicate it to be—the new red or saliferous sandstone, it may be expected to yield thin seams of coal, in distant places, but no deposit of this mineral which will reward exploration in this or its super-incumbent series of rocks, the slates, limestones, &c. It will result, that the coal-measures, properly so denominated, are a prior deposit in the order of series; and, should they hereafter be found, such a discovery must take place above the range of the sandstone, which is the basis rock at Niagara and Genesee Falls.
Having premised the character of the sandstone, all the series occupying a position above it must derive their character, as secondary deposits, from this. The limestone cannot, therefore, be a part of the carboniferous or "medial." The slates, as shown at Cashong, are fragmentary, and rather nearer slaty grauwacks. The arenaceous and calcareous upper deposits assume nearly the position of the oolitic series, and, in fact, ought, in some localities, to be regarded as equivalents.
Western Coal-Mines.—Much of the data employed in these inquiries is the result of previous examinations of the great coal deposits in the Ohio Valley, and other parts of the western country. Here we have the coal-sandstone and the slate clay, with slate, &c., alternating with the coal-measures. Such is the order of deposits at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela, where the formation is well developed, and where there exists, too, in the elevated valley hills, several repetitions of the series. The zechstone, or compact limestone, which is a pervading rock in the Mississippi Valley, occupies a position next above the great Mississippi sandstone.[ [245] It may always be distinguished from the shelly, entrochal limestone of the Genesee,[ [246] by the absence of gypsum and of the fetid odor emitted on fracture.
Alleghany Valley.—A question of interest, in connection with the extent of the Ohio Valley coal-formation, arises from the attempt to fix the point to which this formation ascends the Alleghany Valley—being the direct avenue into Western New York. I have examined this valley in its entire length between Pittsburg and Olean, in Cattaraugus County, and have not been able to observe that there are any evidences of its termination below the latter point. The general order and parallelism of strata remain the same. The coal stratum is apparently present. The qualities of the coal at Armstrong, and at various points below French Creek—the first primary fork of the river—are not distinguishable from the products of the Pittsburg galleries. Less search has been made above that point, but wherever the hills have been penetrated, they have—as at Brokenstraw—produced the bituminous coal. Above the Conawango Valley, which brings in the redundant waters of Chatauque Lake, the Alleghany discloses frequent rapids. The effect of parallelism upon the strata is to sink the coal-measures deeper as they ascend the Alleghany; and this cause may, in connection with the unexplored character of the country, be referred to in accounting for the absence of coal along this part of the line. The reappearance of traces of this mineral at Potato Creek, forty miles above Olean, is a proof, however, that the coal-formation extends to that point. This locality is a few miles within the limits of Pennsylvania. It occurs in a valley.
Coal in Western New York.—The coal-bed above Olean is south of the summit of the Genesee, and not remote from its primary source. The expectation may be indulged that the western coal-formation embraces portions of Cattaraugus and Alleghany or Steuben counties. The noted spring of naphtha, called Seneca Oil, is on Oil Creek in this county. As this substance, in the class of bitumens, is nearly allied to the coal series, it may be deemed favorable to the existence of the formation in the substrata.[ [247] Fragments of carbonized wood are frequently found in the large tracts of marine sand,[ [248] as well as in some of the mixed alluvions of these counties; and it needs but an examination, as cursory as it has fallen to my lot to make, of this portion of the country, to render it one of high geological interest, and to denote that the coal-measures probably extend into some portions of Western New York.[ [249]
ADDENDA.
Animals inclosed in Rock, &c.
Toads.—In 1770, a toad was brought to Mr. Grignon inclosed in two hollow shells of stone; but, on examining it nicely, Mr. G. discovered that the cavity bore the impression of a shell-fish, and, of consequence, he concluded it to be apocryphal.
In 1771, another instance occurred, and was the subject of a curious memoir read by Mr. Guettard to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. It was thus related by that famous naturalist:—
In pulling down a wall, which was known to have existed upwards of a hundred years, a toad was found without the smallest aperture being discoverable by which it could have entered. Upon inspecting the animal, it was apparent that it had been dead but a very little time; and in this state it was presented to the Academy, which induced Mr. Guettard to make repeated inquiries into the subject, the particulars of which will be read with pleasure in the excellent memoir we have just cited.
Worms.—Two living worms were found, in Spain, in the middle of a block of marble which a sculptor was carving into a lion, of the natural color, for the royal family. These worms occupied two small cavities to which there was no inlet that could possibly admit the air. They subsisted, probably, on the substance of the marble, as they were the same color. This fact is verified by Captain Ulloa, a famous Spaniard, who accompanied the French academicians in their voyage to Peru to ascertain the figure of the earth. He asserts that he saw these two worms.
Adder.—We read in the Affiches de Provence, 17 June, 1772, that an adder was found alive in the centre of a block of marble thirty feet in diameter. It was folded nine times round, in a spiral line. It was incapable of supporting the air, and died a few minutes after. Upon examining the stone, not the smallest trace was to be found by which it could have glided in or received air.
Crawfish.—Misson, in his Travels through Italy, mentions a crawfish that was found alive in the middle of a marble in the environs of Tivoli.
Frogs.—M. Peyssonel, king's physician at Guadaloupe, having ordered a pit to be dug in the back part of his house, live frogs were found by the workmen in beds of petrifaction. M. P., suspecting some deceit, descended into the pit, dug the bed of the rock and petrifactions, and drew out himself green frogs, which were alive, and perfectly similar to what we see every day.
We are informed by the European Magazine, February 21, 1771, that M. Herissan inclosed three live toads in so many cases of plaster, and shut them up in a deal box, which he also covered with thick plaster. On the 6th of April, 1774, having taken away the plaster, he opened the box, and found the cases whole and two of the toads alive. The one that died was larger than the others, and had been more compressed in its case. A careful examination of this experiment convinced those who had witnessed it, that the animals were so inclosed that they could have no possible communication with the external air, and that they must have existed during this lapse of time without the smallest nourishment.
The Academy prevailed upon M. Herissan to repeat the experiment. He inclosed again the two surviving toads, and placed the box in the hands of the Secretary, that the Society might open it whenever they should think proper. But this celebrated naturalist was too strongly interested in the subject to rest satisfied with a single experiment; he made, therefore, the two following:—
1. He placed, 15 April, 1771, two live toads in a basin of plaster, which he covered with a glass case that he might observe them frequently. On the 9th of the following month, he presented the apparatus to the Academy. One of the toads was still living; the other had died the preceding night.
2. The same day, April 15, he inclosed another toad in a glass bottle, which he buried in sand, that it might have no communication with the external air. This animal, which he presented to the Academy at the same time, was perfectly well, and even croaked whenever the bottle was shook in which he was confined. It is to be lamented that the death of M. Herissan put a stop to these experiments.
We beg leave to observe upon this subject, that the power which these animals appear to possess of supporting abstinence for so long a time, may depend upon a very slow digestion, and, perhaps, from the singular nourishment which they derive from themselves. M. Grignon observes that this animal sheds its skin several times in the course of a year, and that it always swallows it. He has known, he says, a large toad shed its skin six times in one winter. In short, those which, from the facts we have related, may be supposed to have existed many centuries without nourishment, have been in a total inaction, in a suspension of life, or a temperature that has admitted of no dissolution; so that it was not necessary to repair any loss, the humidity of the surrounding matter preserving that of the animal, who wanted only the component parts not to be dried up, to preserve it from destruction.
The results of modern chemistry and philosophy have proved the number of elementary substances to be far greater than was admitted in the preceding century. And this discovery is progressive, and will probably go on a long time; after which, it is not improbable a new race of chemical and philosophical observers will spring up, who will be able to decompose many substances we now consider elementary, and thus again reduce the number of elements of which all external matter is composed. It would not be wonderful if posterity should reduce the number of elements even as low as the ancients had them. Such a result would throw new light on the mysterious and intricate connection which seems to exist between animal, vegetable, and mineral matter. We should then, perhaps, have less cause to wonder that toads, &c., are capable of supporting life in stone, that birds should exist in solid blocks of wood, &c.
But toads are not the only animals which are capable of living for a considerable length of time without nourishment and communication with the external air. The instances of the oysters and dactyles, mentioned at the beginning of this article, may be advanced as a proof of it. But there are other examples.—European Magazine, March, 1791.
A beetle, of the species called capricorn, was found in a piece of wood in the hold of a ship at Plymouth. The wood had no external mark of any aperture.—European Magazine.
A bug eat itself out of a cherry table at Williamstown, Mass. See an account of this phenomenon, by Professor Dewey, in the Lit. and Philos. Repertory.
These phenomena remind us of others of a similar nature and equally certain.
In a trunk of an elm, about the size of a man's body, three or four feet above the root, and precisely in the centre, was found, in 1719, a live toad, of a moderate size, thin, and which occupied but a very small space. As soon as the wood was cut, it came out and slipped away very alertly. No tree could be more sound. No place could be discovered through which it was possible for the animal to have penetrated, which led the recorder of the fact to suppose that the spawn from which it originated must, from some unaccountable accident, have been in the tree from the very moment of its first vegetation. The toad had lived in the tree without air, and, what is still more surprising, had subsisted on the substance of the wood, and had grown in proportion as the tree had grown. This fact was attested by M. Hebert, Ancient Professor of Philosophy at Caen.
In 1731, M. Leigne wrote to the Academy of Sciences at Paris an account of a phenomenon exactly similar to the preceding one, except that the tree was larger, and was an oak instead of an elm, which makes the instance the more surprising. From the size of the oak, M. Leigne judged that the toad must have existed in it without air or any external nourishment, for the space of eighty or a hundred years.
We shall cite a third instance, related in a letter the 5th Feb. 1780, written from the neighborhood of Saint Mexent, of which the following is a copy.
"A few days ago, I ordered an oak tree of a tolerable size to be cut down, and converted into a beam that was wanting for a building I was then constructing. Having separated the head from the trunk, three men were employed in squaring it to the proper size. About four inches were to be cut away on each side. I was present during the transaction. Conceive what was their astonishment when I saw them throw aside their tools, start back from the tree, and fix their eyes on the same point with a kind of amazement and terror. I instantly approached, and looked at that part of the tree which had fixed their attention. My surprise equalled theirs, on seeing a toad, about the size of a large pullet's egg, incrusted, in a manner, in the tree, at the distance of four inches from the diameter and fifteen from the root. It was cut and mangled by the axe, but still moved. I drew it with difficulty from its abode, or rather prison, which it filled so completely that it seemed to have been compressed. I placed it on the grass; it appeared old, thin, languishing, decrepit. We afterwards examined the tree with the nicest care, to discover how it had glided in; but the tree was perfectly whole and sound."—European Magazine.
Bat.—A woodman engaged in splitting timber for rail-posts in the woods close by the lake in Haming (a seat of Mr. Pringle's in Selkirkshire), lately discovered, in the centre of a large wild cherry tree, a living bat, of a bright scarlet color, which he foolishly suffered to escape, from fear, being fully persuaded it was (with the characteristic superstition of the inhabitants of that part of the country) a "being not of this world." The tree presented a small cavity in the centre, where the bat was inclosed, but is perfectly sound and solid on each side.—N. Y. Lit. Journ. and Belles-Lettres Repository, taken from the London Semi-Monthly Magazine.
Skull in Wood.—A tenant of the Rev. J. Cattle, of Warwick, lately presented to him a part of the solid butt of an oak tree, containing within it the skull of some animal (unknown). It was in the part of the tree nine feet above the ground, and was perfectly inclosed in solid timber.—N. Y. Lit. Journ. and Belles-Lettres Repository, from European Magazine.
X.
A Memoir on the Geological Position of a Fossil-Tree in the Series of the Secondary Rocks of the Illinois.
The spirit of inquiry which has been excited in this country in regard to objects of natural history, while it has enlarged the boundaries of our knowledge of existing species, has directed some of its more valuable researches to those organized forms which have perished and become embalmed in the shape of petrifactions, in the body of solid rocks. A petrified tree of this kind has recently been discovered in the secondary[ [250] rocks at the source of the Illinois River. Having recently visited this evidence of former changes in the flora of the West, I embrace the occasion, while my recollections are fresh, to give an account of it.
The tract of country separating the southern shores of Lake Michigan from the Illinois River, is a plat of table-land composed of compact limestone, based on floetz or horizontal sandstone. This formation embraces the contiguous parts of Illinois, and spreads through Indiana, Ohio, and the Peninsula of Michigan. It is overspread with a deposit of the drift era, covered with a stratum of alluvial soil, presenting a pleasing surface of prairies, forests, and streams. These features may be considered as peculiarly characteristic of the junction of the Rivers Kankakee and Des Plaines, which constitute the Illinois River. This junction is effected about forty miles south of Chicago.
The fossil in question occurs about forty rods above the junction of the Kankakee. The sandstone embracing it is deposited in perfectly horizontal layers, of a gray color and close grain. It lies in the bed of the Des Plaines. The action of this stream has laid bare the trunk of the tree to the extent of fifty-one feet six inches. The part at the point where it is overlaid in the western bank is two feet six inches in diameter. Its mineralization is complete. The trunk is simple, straight, scabrous, without branches, and has the usual taper observed in the living specimen. It lies nearly at right angles to the course of the river, pointing towards the southeast, and extends about half the width of the stream. Notwithstanding the continual abrasion to which it is exposed by the volume of passing water, it has suffered little apparent diminution, and is still firmly imbedded in the rock, with the exception of two or three places where portions of it have been disengaged and carried away; but no portion of what remains is elevated more than a few inches above the surface of the rock. It is owing, however, to those partial disturbances that we are enabled to perceive the columnar form of the trunk, its cortical layers, the bark by which it is enveloped, and the peculiar cross fracture, which unite to render the evidence of its ligneous origin so striking and complete. From these characters and appearances, little doubt can remain that it is referable to the species juglans nigra, a tree very common to the forest of the Illinois, as well as to most other parts of the immense region drained by the waters of the Mississippi. The woody structure is most obvious in the outer rind of the trunk, extending to a depth of two or three inches, and these appearances become less evident as we approximate the heart. Indeed, the traces of organic structure in its interior, particularly when viewed in the hand specimen, are almost totally obliterated and exchanged, the vegetable matter being replaced by a mixed substance, analogous, in its external character, to some of the silicated and impure calcareous carbonates of the region. Like those carbonates, it is of a brownish-gray color and compact texture, effervesces slightly in the nitric and muriatic acids, yields a white streak under the knife, and presents solitary points, or facets, of crystals resembling calc spar. All parts of the tree are penetrated by pyrites of iron of a brass yellow color, disseminated through the most solid and stony parts of the interior, filling interstices in the outer rind, or investing its capillary pores. There are also the appearances of rents or seams between the fibres of the wood, caused by its own shrinkage, which are now filled with a carbonate of lime, of a white color and crystallized.
From an effect analogous to carbonization, the exterior rind and bark of the tree have acquired a blackish-hue, while the inclosing rock is of a light-gray color, characters which are calculated to arrest attention.
There is reason to conclude that the subject under consideration is the joint result, partly of the infiltration of mineral matter into its pores and crevices, prior to inclosure in the rock, and partly to the chemical action educed by the great catastrophe by which it was translated from its parent forest, and suddenly enveloped in a bed of solidifying sand.
At the time of my visit (August 13, 1821), the depth of water upon the floetz rocks forming the bed of the River Des Plaines, would vary from one to two feet; but it was at a season when these higher tributaries, and the Illinois itself, are generally at their lowest stage. Like most of the confluent rivers of the Mississippi and their tributaries, the Des Plaines is subject to great fluctuations, and during its periodical floods may be estimated to carry a depth of eight or ten feet of water to the junction of the Kankakee. At those periods, the water is also rendered turbid by the quantity of alluvial matter it carries down, and a search for this organic fossil must prove unsuccessful. But during the prevalence of the summer droughts, in an atmosphere of little humidity, when the waters are drained to the lowest point of depression, and acquire the greatest degree of transparency, it forms a very conspicuous trait in the geology of the stream, and no person, seeking the spot, can fail to be directed to it.
The sand-rock containing this petrifaction is found in a horizontal position, differing only with respect to hardness and color. The remains of fossil organized bodies in this stratum are not abundant, or have not been successfully sought. It is probable that future observations will prove that its organic conservata are chiefly referable to the vegetable kingdom. It is certain, that this inference is justified by the facts which are before me, and particularly by the characteristic appearances of the strata in the bed of the River Des Plaines, where the imbedded walnut is the representative of the ancient flora. At a short distance above, where the bed of the Des Plaines approaches nearer the summit level, limestone ensues, and continues from that point northward to the shores of Lake Michigan. In the vicinity of Chicago, where this limestone is quarried for economical purposes, it is characterized by the fossil remains of molluscous species.
Lake Erie lies at an elevation of five hundred and sixty-five feet above the Atlantic.[ [251]
There exists a water communication between the head of Lake Michigan, at Chicago, and the River Des Plaines, during the periodical rises of the latter, but its summer level is about seven feet lower, at the termination of the Chicago portage, than the surface of the lake. From this point to its junction with the Kankakee, a computed distance of fifty miles, the bed of the Des Plaines may be considered as having a mean southern depression of ten inches per mile, so that the floetz rocks at its mouth, lying on a level of forty-eight feet eight inches below the surface of Lake Michigan, have an altitude which cannot vary far from five hundred and fifty feet above the Atlantic. There are no mountains for a vast distance either east or west of this stream. It is a country of plains, in which are occasionally to be seen alluvial hills of moderate elevation; but the most striking inequalities of surface proceed from the streams which have worn their deep-seated channels through it; and an oceanic overflow capable of covering the country, and producing these strata by deposition, would also submerge all the immense tracts of secondary and alluvial country between the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains, converting into an arm of the sea the great valley of the Mississippi, from the Gulf of Mexico north to the Canadian Lakes. We find in the alluvial soil along the Illinois and Des Plaines blocks of granite, hornblende, and gneiss, of the drift stratum, exhibiting the same appearances of attrition, and of having been transported from their parent beds, which characterize the secondary tablelands along the margin of the great American lakes, the prairies of Illinois, and the western parts of New York.
There is nothing, perhaps, in the progress of modern science, which has tended to facilitate geological research so much as the study and investigation of fossil organic remains. They teach, with unerring lights, how extensively the ancient flora and fauna of this continent have been prostrated, leaving their exact impressions, in all their minuteness, in the newly-formed stratifications. That these impressions, fresh and vivid as we find them, should mark the eras of depositions and crystallization of rocks from the suspension of their elements in water, is the observation of Werner, and it is to him we owe the elements of the Neptunian hypothesis. His general recognition of the epochs of the primitive, transition, and secondary rocks, appears too probable not to commend itself to adoption with regard to all strata which can be conceived to be the products of watery menstrua.
But it remained for Werner, who was the first to perceive an order in strata, also to point out the important application of fossil organic bodies in elucidating their eras, and the natural order of their superposition.
To adopt the words of Dr. Thomas Cooper:—
"There appears to be a series of strata, or, as Werner calls them, formations, that may be considered as surrounding the nucleus of the earth. The first formed, or lowest series, always preserve the same situation to each other, except where occasional eruptions, or circumstances not of a general nature, make a variety in their situations. These strata are not only the deepest, but they are also the highest that are observable in the crust of the earth; forming the tops of the highest mountains. They are characterized by an appearance of crystallization, and by containing no remains of organic matter, animal or vegetable. The strata or formations that in general constitute this first, deepest, highest, and crystallized series, are granite, gneiss, mica-slate, clay-slate, primitive greenstone, granular limestone, serpentine, porphyry, and sienite. These formations are so generally found, and in the same situations as incumbent upon or subtending each other relatively, that they may be considered as universal. Their crystallized appearance shows that their particles have either been dissolved or very finely suspended in water, so that the attraction of crystallization has been free to operate; that this water has been deep, so that the lowermost parts of it have not been much agitated during the crystallization, which would otherwise have been more confused than it is; and, indeed, the oldest formations are the best crystallized. A part of the water covering the nucleus must have been taken up, as water of crystallization, in the primitive formations. When these were deposited, there were no vegetables formed; of course, no animals; nay, even the sea was unpeopled, for there is no trace of any organic remains in these strata. Even the belemnites, the asteriæ, the echini, the entrochi, the most simple forms of oceanic animal life, do not occur until the transition strata appear. Hence the propriety of denominating these formations primitive.
"By processes of nature, besides the consumption of water by the new crystallized masses, to us unknown, the waters appear to have diminished. The highest parts of the primitive formations became the shores to the water superincumbent on their bases and middle regions; the simplest forms of oceanic animals came into existence; the mosses and lichens of high latitude would generally occupy the surface of the primitive strata, gradually decomposed by the alternate action of air and water after many ages. During this period, while the strata were in a state of transition from the chaotic to the habitable state, other deposits would gradually be made from the waters, now decreased in quantity, and take their place below the summits of the primitive range. Those summits being exposed to the action of the atmosphere, of rains, of frost probably, and to the action also of the waters with their contents still incumbent on the earliest strata, would furnish masses and particles washed away, which would mingle with the deposits of the transition series. This series, therefore, will exhibit appearances of mechanical and chemical intermixture of earths and stones, such as are found in the silicious porphyries, the graywackes, the silicious and argillaceous hornblende rocks, the elder red sandstone, &c. During the period when these transition formations were deposited, there would be no land animals, for there would be no vegetables for them to feed upon. There would be no vegetables unless some few lichens, mosses, or ericas, that would find foothold upon the slight decomposition that, after the lapse of some ages, would take place on the surface of the primitive rocks. The sea only would be peopled, and that but sparingly; for, in that mass of muddy water, none but the lowest and most inferior grades of animal life, and such as do not inhabit deep water, could exist. Hence, we find the transition formations contain in their substances some belemnites, asteriæ, entrochi, echini, &c., but no organized vegetable substance except, very rarely, in the latest rocks of this series, and no remains whatever of terrestrial animals. Indeed, in the high latitudes of the outgoings or summits of the primitive strata, very few vegetables, even at the present day, can live. No vegetation fit for animal life could take place until the transition, and most of the next series of secondary or floetz formations had subsided. These would occupy lower and lower situations, till a rich soil, from every kind of intermixture of earth mechanically deposited, would afford a proper temperature of region, and an easily decomposed soil, wherein vegetables could grow.
"Next to the transition series, come the secondary, or, as the German mineralogists call them, the floetz rocks; so called, because they appear to be more floated or horizontal, though I confess the appellation does not appear to me peculiarly appropriate. These strata consist principally of sandstone, limestone—sometimes fetid from bituminous impregnations, sometimes shelly—secondary greenstone, graphite, coal, gypsum, rock salt. I have observed that the Alpine heights of the primitive mountains could at no time furnish much food. The same remark, but in a less degree, will apply to the transition range; the low and kindly climates occupied by the secondary series. The soft and decomposable nature of these depositions would furnish the true theatre of vegetable life, and, until these regions were filled with vegetables, the race of animals could not have been produced; for on what could they subsist? Graminivorous animals, therefore, must have succeeded the various forms of vegetable existence; and carnivorous, the graminivorous. The vegetable matter imbedded in the substance of the secondary strata will consist of the remains of vegetables that grow in the transition strata; and the animal remains will consist chiefly of such animals as were produced in the early stages of animal existence, particularly the smaller aquatic animals; and, of these, chiefly shell-fish, as shells are not so soon decomposed as mere animal substance."
It is to the latter class of depositions—to the secondary series—that we must refer the sandstone of the River Des Plaines, in which we find a walnut, of mature growth, enveloped by, and imbedded in the rock, in the most complete state of mineralization; and, since all geological writers who subscribe to the Neptunian theory are constrained to employ the agency of oceanic depositions of different eras, in explaining the structure of the earth's surface, it is one of the most obvious and important conclusions, to be drawn from the fact that such submersions and depositions of rock matter have taken place subsequent to the existence of forests of mature growth, and that the rock strata and beds composing the exterior of the earth are the result of different geological epochs, and of successive subsidences of chaotic matter—positions which have been so severely attacked and so often denied, particularly by the disciples of the Huttonian school, that it is not without a feeling of lively interest, I communicate a discovery which appears so conclusive on the subject.
Considerations arising from the frontier position of the country, and the infrequency of the communication, have also induced me to draw from incidental sources, a corroboration of the facts advanced.
In a letter to Governor Cass, of Michigan, dated September 17, 1821, I made the following observations on the subject under review:—
"I consider the petrified tree discovered during our recent journey up the Illinois, so extraordinary an object in the natural history of the country, and calculated to lead to conclusions so important to the science of geology, that I am anxious to avail myself of your concurrent testimony as to the fact of the existence of the tree in a mineralized state, and the natural appearances of the spot where it lies imbedded. I feel the more solicitude on this subject, as I am aware that any description of this phenomenon which I may be induced to communicate to the public, will be received with a degree of caution and scrutiny which it is the province of the naturalist to exercise whenever any discovery is announced affecting the existing theories of the natural sciences, or tending to increase the volume of facts upon which their advancement and perfection depend. I am aware, also, that whatever degree of caution and vigilance it may be proper to exercise to prevent errors from mingling with the sound doctrines of the physical and other sciences, still more care and circumspection is requisite in examining facts which affect the progress of geology."
I quote an extract from Governor Cass's reply on the subject:—
"The appearance of the wood and bark indicates that it was a black walnut, the juglans nigra of our forests. We computed its original diameter, at the place where it is concealed in the earth, to have been three feet, and at the other end eighteen inches. The texture of the wood, and the bark and knots, are nearly as distinct as in the living subject, and the process of decay had not commenced previous to the commencement of this wonderful conversion. Every part of the mass which we could examine is solid stone, and readily yields fire by the collision with steel.
"When we visited the spot, the water of the river was at the lowest stage; but there was no part of the tree within some inches of the surface. The rocky bed of the stream was formed round and upon it. We raised from it pieces of the rock, which were evidently in situ, and which had been formed upon the tree posterior to the period of its deposit in its present situation. This rock is a species of sandstone, whose characteristic features must be well known to you.
"There are no mineralized substances of vegetable origin in the vicinity of this specimen, nor are there any appearances which indicate that its present condition has been caused by any peculiar property in the waters of the Des Plaines."
ADDENDA.
The publication of the foregoing memoir led to several letters being addressed to the author on topics connected with it. Some of these were from gentlemen eminent in science or politics, whose opinions are entitled to the highest respect. Extracts are given from such only as introduce new data, either of fact or opinion.
Geological Theories.—Professor Dewey, of Williams College, observes: "A friend has just lent me your 'Memoir on a Fossil-Tree.' Though the account is very interesting, I do not perceive its exact bearing on the Neptunian and Plutonian hypotheses. The fault is doubtless in me, and you will excuse my remarks and set me right. I had supposed the Huttonians and Wernerians did not dispute about the manner in which the secondary rocks were formed. Macculloch, and others before him, led me into this opinion, though it may be erroneous. But Bakewell, who is referred to as authority in Rees's Cyclopædia, says, p. 131: 'Geologists are agreed that secondary rocks have been formed by the agency of water.' If this be so, they would agree generally with the account of Dr. Cooper respecting the formation of petrifactions, and especially those of vegetables, and the fossil-tree would be treated of in a similar manner by both."
Hutton's original hypothesis, and not the modifications of it introduced by the Neptu-Vulcanists, were adverted to in reply. Subsequently, Professor Dewey writes:—
"I was greatly obliged by your letter in various respects, and I write you now to make my acknowledgments for it, as well as to maintain the correctness of your notions on the Huttonian hypothesis. As you had seen a Scotch mineralogist directly from the mint of Playfair, I had every reason to suppose you had received correct views of Playfair's notions on the subject. I have been led, therefore, to examine the matter, and, as I may have set you on the search, I wish to prevent your continuing it on my account, or from what I wrote.
"Playfair's Illustrations I have never seen. Occasional extracts, or allusions to its points, have fallen in my way. But I have before me a very full abstract of Hutton's paper on the subject, from the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It is from the very paper in which he announces his hypothesis. In that paper he mentions that the consolidation of all the hard crust of the globe has been effected by heat and fusion, extending it to secondary as well as primitive rocks, and mentioning particularly Spanish marble, shell limestone, oolite, and chalk.
"This operation of heat, he says, is exemplified by chalk, which is to be found in all gradations, from marble to loose chalk. This is his precise notion, but not his words. I had once looked at this paper before, and thought much of this theory; but this thought had been obliterated from my mind by thoughts advanced by others, as I thought in consistency with the sentence I quoted from Bakewell. At least, one objection to Hutton's views would be removed by modifying his theory in the manner it seems to be by Bakewell. Though Hutton does not think this to be necessary; for he appears to feel no difficulty in accounting for petrifactions of wood on his hypothesis, for he mentions that we have many proofs of the penetration of flinty matter, in a state of fusion, in other bodies, such as insulated pieces of flint in chalk or sand, and fossil wood penetrated with silicious matter.
"Still, the grand reasons of Hutton for employing heat as the agent of consolidation are opposed to the above modification of his theory. These reasons, as you know, are the insolubility of most mineral substances in water, and the disappearance of the water from the cavities of minerals which have been consolidated. The first is, indeed, the great one for Hutton; for the crystallization of salts in water, and the existence of liquids, in some cases, in the cavities of the most solid minerals, show well enough that the water might or might not disappear, as the circumstances were different.
"If the Huttonians maintain, as he did, the formation of petrifactions by heat, which consistency requires, I concede, indeed, to you that that fossil-tree stands as a grand monument of some different process; and yet, we can hardly suppose that they do not see great difficulty in the common notion on the subject. The rapidity with which the petrifactions must have taken place—a point well illustrated in Hayden's Geological Essays—seems to require some new notions on the subject. What these may be, I cannot tell; but I believe that neither of these two hypotheses will be adopted exclusively, half a century hence, on this point, or on geology generally. I think, with you, that our countrymen need illumination on the subject of Hutton's hypothesis, and I wish some one would attempt it."
Trap-Rocks of Europe and America.—"I suspect the greenstone of our country, when examined as it ought to be, will be found, in its geological relations, much to resemble the basalt of Europe; and that the same difficulties will attend it, on Werner's hypothesis, as now attend the basalt. Indeed, I know not how we can account for what Bakewell and Macculloch state on this hypothesis."
Sandstone of Virginia.—"I have seen a piece of a petrified tree, about eight inches through, found in the sandstone of Virginia, but could get none of it. The petrifaction was far finer than the stone in which it lay, and was, like it, silex."
Sandstone of Ohio.—C. Atwater, Esq., in a letter to the author, observes:—
"I can assure you that the finding of whole trees in sandstone is nothing strange in this State. Some of these trees are imbedded in sandstone one hundred feet below the surface. Zanesville and Gallipolis are the best spots to find these fossils.
"There is no part of the tree but what I have in my cabinet, not excepting their leaves, fruit, and even fungi attached to them."
Mosaical History of the Creation.—B. Irvine, Esq., in adverting to remarks on the Illinois fossil, observes:—
"They may yet awaken some ideas in the minds of the people on the wonders of physics—and I had almost said, the slow miracles of creation; for, if ever there was a time when matter existed not, it is pretty evident that millions of years, instead of six days, were necessary to establish order in chaos, let Cuvier, &c. temporize as they may. However, it is the humble allotment of the herd to believe or stare; it is the glory of intelligent men to inquire and admire."
The doctrine of materialism, adverted to by Mr. Irvine, it is the province of divines to controvert. One remark may be predicted on the biblical era of the six days. It is now believed to be generally conceded by eminent geologists and ecclesiastics, that the term "day," employed by the translators of the English version of the Scriptures, is used in Gen. ch. i. in a sense synonymous with "era" or "time," as it is emphatically used in Gen. ch. ii. ver. 4. For an able exposition of the present views on this subject, see the American Journal of Science, vol. XXV. No. 1.