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 earliest publication in America of the results of microscopic
investigation of rocks that the writer has been able to find is by A. A.
Julien and C. E. Wright, chiefly on greenstones and chloritic schists
from the iron-bearing regions of upper Michigan.[115] Naturally, it was
of a brief and elementary character. In 1874 E. S. Dana read a paper
before the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the
result of his studies on the “Trap-rocks of the Connecticut valley,” an
abstract of which was published in this Journal.[116] Meanwhile Clarence
King, in charge of the 40th Parallel survey, feeling the need of a
systematic study of the crystalline rocks which had been encountered,
and finding no one in this country prepared to undertake it, had induced
Zirkel to give his attention to this task. The result of this labor
appeared in 1876 in a fine volume[117] which attracted great attention.
In the same year appeared also petrographical papers by J. H.
Caswell,[118] E. S. Dana[119] and G. W. Hawes.[120] The latter devoted
himself almost entirely to this field of research and may thus, perhaps,
be termed the earliest of the petrographers in this country. His work,
“The Mineralogy and Lithology of New Hampshire,” issued in 1878 as one
of the reports of the State Survey under Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, was the
first considerable memoir by an American. This was followed by various
papers, one on the “Albany Granite and its contact phenomena,”[121]
being of especial interest as one of the earliest studies of a contact
zone, and in the fullness of methods employed in attacking the problem
forecasting the change to the petrology era.
During the ten years following, or from 1880 to 1890, the new science of
petrography flourished and grew exceedingly. Many young geologists
abroad devoted themselves to this field of research and the store of
accumulated knowledge concerning rocks from all parts of the world, and
their relations grew apace. The work of Teall has been noticed and among
others might be mentioned the name of Brögger, whose first
contribution[122] in this field gave evidence that his publications
would become classics in the science.
In America there appeared in this period a number of eager workers,
trained in part in the laboratories of Rosenbusch and Zirkel, whose
researches were destined to place the science on the secure footing in
this country which it occupies to-day. Among the earlier of these may be
mentioned Whitman Cross, R. D. Irving, J. P. Iddings, G. H. Williams, J.
F. Kemp, J. S. Diller, B. K. Emerson, M. E. Wadsworth, G. P. Merrill, N.
H. Winchell, and F. D. Adams in Canada. Others were added yearly to this
group. As a result of their work a constantly growing volume of
information about the rocks of America became available, and one has
only to examine the files of the Journal and other periodicals and the
listed publications of the National and State Surveys to appreciate
this.
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