A century of science in America : $b with special reference to the American Journal of Science, 1818-1918
History
A century of science in America : $b with special reference to the American Journal of Science, 1818-1918
American journal of science; Science -- United States -- History
The objection of a writer in the American Journal of Science, that
such a height of waters as would deposit Mount Toby, must have
produced a lake nearly to the upper part of New Hampshire, in the
Connecticut Valley, and thus have caused the same sandstone to be
produced higher up that valley than Northfield, loses its force, when
it is recollected that this formation was deposited before its strata
were elevated. For the elevating force undoubtedly changed the
relative level of different parts of the country. In this case, the
disturbing force must have acted beneath the primary rocks. And
besides, we have good evidence which will be shown by and by, that our
new red sandstone was formed beneath the ocean. We cannot then reason
on this subject from present levels.”
[Illustration: Courtesy of _Popular Science Monthly_.]
In 1840, H. D. Rogers, a geologist who has acquired a more widely known
name than Hitchcock, but who in reality showed an inferior ability in
interpretation, made the following statements in explanation of the
regional monoclinal dip of the New Jersey Triassic rocks averaging 15 to
20 degrees to the northwest:[78]
“Their materials give evidence of having been swept into this estuary,
or great ancient river, from the south and southeast, by a current
producing an almost universal dip of the beds towards the northwest, a
feature clearly not caused by any uplifting agency, but assumed
originally at the time of their deposition, in consequence of the
setting of the current from the opposite or southeastern shore.”
In 1842, at the third annual meeting of the Association of American
Geologists both H. D. and W. B. Rogers argued (=43=, 170, 1842) against
Sir Charles Lyell and E. Hitchcock that the present dip of the Triassic
was the original slope of deposition, stating among other reasons that
the footprints impressed upon the sediments often showed a slipping and
a pushing of the soft clay in the direction of the downhill slope. In
1858 H. D. Rogers still held to the same views of original dip,[79]
notwithstanding that a moderate amount of observation on the mud-cracked
and rain-pitted layers would have supplied the proof that such must have
dried as horizontal surfaces. The idea of inclined deposition is not yet
wholly dead as it has been suggested more than once within the present
generation as a means of escaping from the necessity of accepting the
very great thicknesses of this and similar formations. Thus, as Brögger
has remarked in another connection,—the ghosts of the old time stand
ever ready to reappear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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