Mr. F. is on his way to the Upper Mississippi as a geologist in the
service of the Topographical Bureau. He took a good deal of interest in
examining my cabinet, and proposed I should exchange the Lake Superior
minerals for the gold ores of Virginia, &c. He showed me his idea of the
geological column, and drew it out. I accompanied him around the island,
to view its reticulated and agaric filled limestone cliffs; but derived
no certain information from him of the position in the geological scale
of this very striking stratum. It is, manifestly, the magnesian
limestone of Conybeare and Phillips, or _muschelkalk_ of the Germans.
Lieut. Mather brought me a letter from Major Whiting, from which I learn
that he has been professor of mineralogy in the Military Academy at West
Point. I found him to be animated with a zeal for scientific discovery,
united with accurate and discriminating powers of observation.
Among my visitors about this time, none impressed me more pleasingly
than a young gentleman from Cincinnati--a graduate of Lane Seminary--a
Mr.
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