Art. XII. Notice of Eaton's Index to the Geology of the Northern States, together with a Transverse Section of the Catskill Mountain to the Atlantic.
The extensive collection of facts in this little book of fifty-four pages, is creditable to the author's industry and discernment: he informs us that he has travelled 1000 miles on foot, while investigating the geology of the district concerning which he has written. This district is certainly interesting, and every attempt to diffuse correct information concerning it, deserves encouragement. Mr. Eaton's account of the regions he has explored, has every mark of verisimilitude; and we commend his efforts to diffuse geological information, by short courses of lectures, in different towns. In his arrangement of rocks, he has deviated from Werner—has adopted some views of Bakewell, and some of his own. Werner's arrangement of rocks has, undoubtedly, its imperfections and its redundancies; and yet it may be questioned how far his system has been really improved by its different emendators. If Werner, by mentioning argillaceous schistus only in the primitive class of rocks, left us to dispose of it where we might, when we find it at one time, covering or sustaining anthracite, with impressions of ferns, and at another with impressions of fish and vegetables, and in contact with bituminous coal; still those who, with Mr. Eaton, throw argillaceous slate into the transition class, and omit it in the primitive and secondary, embarrass us with an equal difficulty; for we find argillaceous slate in contact, and alternating with, mica slate, and without any impressions of organized bodies, when we must, without a doubt, call it primitive.
This is the fact with the clay slate of the Woodbridge hills, near New-Haven, which is primitive; that of Rhode-Island, with anthracite, is transition; and that at Middlefields, west of Middletown, with impressions of fish, is secondary. Slate then appears to belong to all these three great classes of rocks.
As to the metalliferous limestone, we do not so much object to the introduction of this term by Bakewell, although it appears to us quite as well to say that certain limestones, those of the transition class for example, are metalliferous. But is Eaton correct in referring such limestone as that of which the New-York City-Hall is built, to a metalliferous class? Is not that limestone decidedly primitive? The fact mentioned of its containing pyrites, hardly proves it to be metalliferous; since most rocks contain more or less of pyrites. Some other remarks of less importance we might add, but we prefer concluding by recommending this tract to the perusal of those who wish for information respecting the geological structure of New-England; and we think that Mr. Eaton is seriously aiding the progress of geology in the interior of New-England.
Art. XIII. Notice of M. Brongniart on Organized Remains.
Art. XIII. Notice of M. Brongniart on Organized Remains.
This distinguished mineralogist, so advantageously known by his excellent work on mineralogy—his researches in company with Cuvier, into the subterranean geography of the environs of Paris, and his superintendence of the great porcelain manufactory at Sevres, is attempting to form an extensive collection of organized remains.