tions, and melting away at last in the level prairie. Counting both banks, this system of rivers alone would give a single line of elevations meandering through the great plains something like twenty thousand miles in length, and rising at some points to a height above the river of five hundred feet.

The geology of the river bluffs unfolds itself on the following dynami principles. In an open country like the prairies, rivers possess two elements -a channel and a flood-plain. During the winter season, and some months in summer, the stream is confined within the channel. But during freshets, and particularly the June freshet, which is swollen by mountain snow, the stream rises and spreads over the flood-plain. Now, should the interior o the continent be elevated say a hundred feet by internal forces, the coastline remaining the same, the river would have a greater fall, quicker flow, and more eroding power. A new channel and a new flood-plain would b eut, both of less width, leaving the outer margins of the old flood-plain a an elevated terrace. And the walls of the original geological suture, or onter banks of the stream, would be left by the receding water to be elevated by such successive epochs into river bluffs. And the partings or lips of ary suture in the original crust would be slightly turned up by escaping steam or gases, or outward pressure of the yielding mass beneath, leaving the bl elevated above the surrounding prairie. Four such elevations have taken place since the rivers of the eastern portion of the continent began to flow and three since the Mississippi began to pursue its course toward the Gali As the geological elevation has been greatest toward the interior and western portion of the continent, the eroding power of rivers has proportionally increased, causing. the river bluffs to become more prominent as physical features of the country as we ascend the rivers, just, as we shall see, where they are needed.

The meteorology of the river bluffs is an important element to those dwelling on the great plains. People always living among hills crowned with forests do not realize the force or constancy of the winds in a level prairie country. At Lawrence, Kansas, for example (a place not exposed as much as many points farther west), the self-registering anemometer on the University building, situated on Mount Oread, furnishes the following record: During the year 1875 the wind traveled 145,316 miles, which gives a mean daily velocity of over 398 miles, and an hourly velocity of over 16 miles. These total winds, flowing uniformly over the whole year, would give the people of Lawrence a constant current of air between a fresh breeze and a strong wind. On January 8, 1875, at the same place, the wind attained a velocity of seventy-five miles an hour, a violent gale, only one remove from a hurricane.

The same general belts of wind, running east and west, prevailed around the globe. But the forest-crowned hills of New England and the Middle States drive these currents up into the higher regions of the atmosphere Now the river bluffs are the natural wind-breaks of the great central plains and without them the prairies would be a bleak, an almost uninhabitabl plateau.

Many have observed that rain storms follow streams, without understanding the principles involved. Streams saturate the contiguous air, which again yields its moisture to a condensation, which does not reduce the dryer air lying outside at a distance from the river to the dew-point. In a similar manner, a super-saturated sponge will give forth moisture to a pressure under which a partially saturated sponge would not yield a drop. A cool current of air passing over the country would thus cause the condensation of vapor, or the ever-forming rain cloud, to appear to travel along river courses. And the greater precipitation of moisture along river courses has been one essential element in the growth of forests, frequently covering river bluffs to give them more force as wind-breaks.

The horticulture of the river bluffs is worthy a passing thought. The pursuits of any people determine to some extent their character. Horticulture is a scientific pursuit involving mind, and possessing elevating tendencies. Now the river bluffs are the natural home of the horticulturist. The condition of the soil and climate determine this pursuit almost to the exclusion of cereals. The apple, pear, plum, peach and apricot love the bluffs, and the small fruits flourish. Notably the grape finds its home among the bluffs. We see its rich purple clusters peeping out beneath leafy trellis bars up the sides of almost inaccessible heights. A horticultural people sandwiched in all through the great plains, and mingling freely with neighboring communities while discussing cognate topics, are not devoid of influence which tends to lift a people into higher forms of living. When the year comes to his prime and bears to our homes his rich stores, ripened with dew, sunshine and shower, we dream of Eden, the ideal of human earthly perfection.

The aesthetics of the river bluffs must not be neglected. The absence of this element is dangerous to any people. When painters cease to study Nature's habitudes, and galleries of art are neglected, when poets forget to draw from her their inspiration and repeat her voices, decay falls on a people. In the great plains almost the only elevations are found along the rivers. From these heights the prairies with their green carpets richly ornamented with flowers unfold before us. Nothing compares to a prairie scene except the mighty ocean. The blue vault hangs over us more cerulean than in Eastern climes, the river winds its silver thread between the bluffs until it seems to be broken, and the undulating prairie rolls all around us like the ocean. With such scenes ever before a people can there be decay in poetry, painting or sculpture?

The home life of the river bluffs is an essential element. Nearly all our Western cities and smaller towns, containing quite a proportion of the population, are found along the rivers nestled in the bluffs. The luxury of hills is thus brought to our very doors. No one is in condition to enjoy this luxury until deprived of it. When hills are piled on hills, as in some of the States, there is too much of a good thing. Desserts of rich food eaten daintily become a luxury. River bluffs are the desserts of our broad prairies,

with which Nature has stored her ample board. The prairies satisfy our physical wants; the bluffs feast our souls. The prairies pour in their ample products until all our storehouses are filled beyond measure. The blus lift up our homes and spread the board with ambrosial food. Lifted above the earth we live nearer the gods. We drink in the royal landscape around us, of which poets and painters may only dream. The luxury of a prairie home nestled in the bluffs cannot be portrayed.

At the mouth of the Kansas River, Nature evidently planned a city From this point the railway system naturally radiates. But the frowning bluffs seem to forbid it. Gradually the bluffs melt away to fill the deep ravines. Easily-graded streets leave terraces on either side, to be the sites of comfortable homes, while the crests, with finer views, are crowned with mansions. We love homes lifted a little above the busy streets on terraced heights, surrounded with fountains and trees, fruits and flowers. Such homes are being built all along the Father of Waters-rural retreats of luxury, taste and culture.

To the great central plains of North America, the river bluffs are Natures richest gift. For ages Nature was slowly moulding them, and setting them as watch-towers through all the land. They shield man from the elements which, unobstructed, would desolate his home; they furnish the conditions of a higher rural life; they disclose rich minerals, which Nature has stored in her secret chambers; they reveal the beauties of Nature hidden in landscapes; they furnish sites for homes of comfort and luxury; they tend to lift a people, in a word, out of a dead level, giving the power of elevation from which flows intelligence, culture and true refinement; they open a fountain of living waters to slake the thirst of coming millions. The gods dwelt in Mount Olympus, we are told, in the olden times; so here diviner forms seem to descend to dispense to men their richest favors. Here are the lines of light that shall grow brighter and broader, we trust, until the whole land shall be enlightened and filled with true knowledge. Here shall the graces descend into human habitations, filled with sunshine and gladness, as long as rivers flow murmuring to the sea.

GEOLOGY OF THE WEST.

BY J. VAN CLEVE PHILLIPS.

In boring the artesian well at the Insane Asylum, St. Louis, the auger penetrated 3,800 feet, going through 200 feet of coal measures, 500 feet of sub-carboniferous limestone, 1,000 feet of Devonian, and 2,000 feet of upper and lower silurian, and in the bottom cut a ferruginous sandstone, supposed to be of the Potsdam age.

This sandstone carries the fossil of a marine animal known as the trilo bite, and establishes the fact that at 3,500 feet in depth below the present

level of the Mississippi river and the pavements walked by the busy population of St. Louis, once rolled the waves of the silurian ocean.

We will suppose this auger hole is a shaft 6 by 10 feet square from the surface to the bottom of the hole, and that we have the privilege of going down and examining the strata in its sides as they would appear from the records shown by the borings as the auger penetrated the strata.

First we pass 20 feet of alluvial brick clay, then 40 feet of pipe clay, shaley limestone and fire clay, and at 60 feet deep we find a three foot vein of coal; at 200 feet we reach the upper Archimedes limestone, the same stratum that is exposed at the top of the deep quarry on Tayon avenue, and which contains fossil fish; this is also the same age of rock as the Grafton quarry. Below this is the St. Louis limestone, and next another floor of Keokuk or archimedes limestone, a rock filled with fossils. At 1,200 feet we reach the great salt and oil floors of the Mississippi basin. This stratum comes to-day 30 miles below on the I. M. and S. R. R., and west 30 miles on the M.P. R. R., and from a quarry south of the city that furnished the rock to build the basement of the Four Courts; and as that rock weathers, its black, mottled color is due to the bitumen which the heat of summer has brought to its surface. Chicago is built on this geological horizon, and strata in quarries west of that city are filled with bitumen and petroleum. If space would admit, we might trace this floor throughout the length and breadth of the great basin of the Mississippi, and show where it rises to-day; and has again gone down 4,000 and 5,000 feet under the coal measures of the grand prairies of Illinois and Kansas, and is formed in a great basin in Venango county, Penn., and this again subdivided in lesser basins, and where the economic laws had stored the rich floors of petroleum that have proven such a source of national wealth. But we must go downward. At 2,000 feet we have reached the Niagara group of the upper silurian series, a rock rich in fossils, and of the same age as that over which the great cataract pours its thundering falls. This rock also forms the table lands of Iowa, west of Dubuque, and is the formation of the mammillary outlying mountains that make such a conspicuous feature in the topography of the upper Mississippi lead fields, also forms the mound system of the great lead and zinc fields of Central Missouri. Below this we reach the "Trenton limestone," a member of the silurian system, and same age of rock as found shelving out at low water mark on the Mississippi opposite Dubuque, Iowa, and where the weathering of the slabs has exposed in an embossed form the tribe of the orthosceratites. These fossils are there seen six and ten feet in length, and with their enameled scales and bucklers were the mailed warriors of the silurian seas. Below we find the lower floors of the lower silurian, chert-beds, hornstone and coralline limestone, the same age of rocks as that which abuts against the Iron Mountain on its west side, and is the great lead, zine, copper and iron-bearing rock of South-east Missouri. In passing the Archimedes floor in the subcarboniferous system, we were in the hori zon of strata that carries the great lead and zine veins of South-west Missouri.

And in passing the Niagara and Trenton groups we were in the horizon of the blue shales, cap-rock, upper and lower galena and blue limestone of the upper Mississippi lead field. On reaching the bottom of our shaft we find a coarse, brown, ferruginous sandstone; and we might in the imagination follow this floor to where it rises to-day around the Iron Mountains, 100 miles south of the city, and where it dips under the great coal basins of Central Illinois and Kansas, and comes to-day on the shores of Lake Pepin, Lake Superior, and covering large areas in Northern Wisconsin, being the stratum that bears the great pine flora of that State, and to where it extends out from the "great basin," in a long finger through central New York.

We have now a general idea of the underground system under this city. and if we go back in the imagination to the time when the strata of the upper, middle and lower coal series had been laid down, and the inauguration of the river systems commenced, we shall find that the coal vein of St. Louis County coal basin and the Illinois coal basin in that era lay in solid strate where the Mississippi River now flows-that the strata were elevated along the lines now followed by the river, and 300 feet of coal measures and St. Louis limestone has been abraded, and a coal vein for ten miles wide has been cut away to form the valley through which the river now flows opposite the city.

The science of geology is based on the idea that like produces like; that the great is in the little, and rice versa, and that all the phenomena of the earth's surface, and its strata, and vein system have been produced by the constancy of action of natural economic laws, and that these causes are now in action. And where are we to look for the causes now in action that laid down upon the floor of an ocean the sedimentary matter to form all the strata, from the sandstone in the bottom of this artesian well to the upper coal series, say 6,000 feet vertical of strata? We shall see.

The Mississippi River carries out millions of tons of sedimentary matter daily from the washings of the banks of the hundred tributaries of the Gult of Mexico; this sediment is there taken up by the Gulf Stream, and carried North and spread over the floor of the Atlantic, when it settles in comparatively still water under what is known as the Saragossa Sea; and if we follow up the genealogical thread or heraldry of this river system, we shall see that this process of spreading detrital matter over the ocean's floor has been going on since the river system in the "great basin" was inaugurated, and the wearing down of the valleys of the Ohio, Tennessee, Rock River, the Missouri, Arkansas, and a hundred other branches, were carried forward.

At Dubuque, Iowa, 600 feet-vertical strata have been cut away; at Pittsburg, 400; at Cincinnati, 100; from the head of the Ohio to its mouth from 100 to 500 feet. The same of the Missouri, Arkansas, St. Peters, Cumberland, White, and hundreds of other branches. Enough sedimentary matter has gone out of the mouth of the Mississippi River from the washing down of the valleys of these streams and forming of the topography of the great basin of the Mississippi River to have filled up the Gulf of Mexico and