The following interesting communication from Peter A. Browne, Esq. of
Philadelphia, was submitted last winter, by the Governor of Virginia,
to the General Assembly. It was printed with the documents accompanying
the annual message, and bound up with the legislative journals, but has
had no other publicity. It is therefore _new_ to nineteen-twentieths,
if not to ALL of our readers. We confess we feel somewhat mortified,
that the valuable hints and suggestions thrown out by an intelligent
and scientific stranger, should have failed to attract the attention of
our public functionaries. We are not without hope, however, that a
subject of such vital importance as a geological survey of the state,
will claim the earnest and speedy consideration of the people, as well
as their representatives. It is one of those subjects upon which all
parties, however divided by sectional jealousies or other adverse
views, may meet on common ground, and unite in harmonious action. There
is no portion of the commonwealth which is not deeply interested in the
development of its mineral wealth--none which ought not to lend its
hearty sanction to a scientific survey of the country by a skilful
geologist. To say nothing of the noble example of other states--among
them some of our youngest sisters--our interests are too deeply
involved in the proposed undertaking, longer to defer it.
Agriculture,--commerce,--the arts,--are alike concerned in the
successful prosecution of a work which promises to each such essential
benefits. The people of Virginia have been too long ignorant and
unmindful of their own vast resources. Who would have dreamed a few
years since, that a vein of precious gold, which, for two centuries,
had escaped observation, actually enriched our soil? Who now can form
an adequate conception of the various hidden treasures which science
and enterprise may bring to light. Can the paltry consideration of a
few thousand dollars expense, outweigh the magnificent advantages which
are likely to result? Shall the present generation fold its arms in
supineness, and leave every thing to be done by posterity? We earnestly
exhort our legislators to take the subject into serious consideration.
The writer of the subjoined communication will be pleased to learn that
the mineral springs of the state, (which might in themselves be made a
source of boundless wealth,) have been subjected to careful analysis
during the past summer, by an able chemical professor in one of our
colleges. It is understood that the results of his observation will in
due time be laid before the public.
_Philadelphia, Sept. 30, 1833._
SIR,--Although I have not the honor of a personal acquaintance with
you, I have no hesitation in making the present appeal to your
patriotism and wisdom, not doubting but that I shall find in the great
and growing interest of the subject to the country at large, and
particularly to that portion of the Union over which you preside with
so much dignity and discretion, a sufficient apology for occupying so
much of your valuable time, as will enable you to give the present
communication an attentive perusal.
I have recently returned from a _geological_ excursion to Virginia. I
entered the state near the head waters of the Potomac, passed thence to
Winchester, followed the course of that fine valley to the Natural
bridge; retracing my steps, I turned westwardly at Staunton, crossed
the mountain at Jennings's gap, and visited the justly celebrated
medicinal springs in that region; returning, I went from Staunton
through Charlottesville to Richmond, and down the James to its mouth.
When this tour is taken in connection with a former visit to Wheeling,
it will be conceded that I have seen enough of the state, to enable me
to form a rough estimate of its geological and mineralogical
importance; and I do assure you, sir, that although my anticipations
were far from being meager, I was astonished at the vastness and
variety of interesting objects in that department of natural history,
that were constantly developing themselves, inviting the mind of man to
reflection, and his hands to industry, and displaying at every step the
wisdom and beneficence of the great Creator.
I determined upon respectfully suggesting to your excellency the
expediency of a topographical, geological, mineralogical and
oryctological survey of Virginia. Should the enlightened
representatives of the freemen of your state concur in this opinion, it
will redound to the honor of all concerned, by the encouragement it
will give to the study of the natural sciences--by the enhancement in
value of lands in the interior, thereby enriching the state and its
citizens, and giving a very proper check to unnatural migrations to the
extreme west, by bringing to light and usefulness innumerable valuable
crude materials, thereby not only enlarging the field of manufactures
and the useful arts, but furnishing carrying for the canals and roads
already constructed, and assisting in new internal improvements in
locations of equal importance. That I may not appear to be too
enthusiastic, pardon me for pointing out some of the most obvious
features in the geology of Virginia. Whether we consider the comfort
and convenience of our species, or the industry and prosperity of a
state, there is no mineral production that can outvie in importance
that of _coal_. In this country, where we have hitherto always had a
superabundance of fuel, owing to the vast extent of our natural
forests, the importance of a constant and abundant supply is not felt,
and we are too apt to neglect properly to appreciate its value, but it
is not so elsewhere, and a moment's reflection will shew that it ought
not to be so _here_. Without fuel, of what use would be to us the
metallic ores? for instance iron, which is now moulded, drawn and
worked into thousands and tens of thousands of useful instruments, from
a knife, to the complicated machinery of a steam engine, would forever
remain an indissoluble and useless mass of matter without the aid of
fuel--even the steam engine itself, that colossus of modern machinery,
without the assistance of fire would be inactive and impotent.
The Rev. Mr. Conybeare, an eminent English geologist, speaking of the
coal veins (or coal measures, as they are there called,) of his
country, thus expresses himself:
"The manufacturing industry of this island, colossal as is the fabric
which it has raised, rests principally on no other base than our
fortunate position with regard to the rocks of this series. Should our
coal mines ever be exhausted, it would melt away at once, and it need
not be said, that the effect produced on private and domestic comfort
would be equally fatal with diminution of public wealth; we should lose
many of the advantages of our high civilization, and much of our
cultivated grounds must be again shaded with forests, to afford fuel to
a remnant of our present population. That there is a progressive
tendency to approach this limit, is certain, but ages may yet pass
before it is felt very sensibly; and when it does approach, the
increasing difficulty and expense of working the mines of coal, will
operate, by successive and gradual checks, against its consumption,
through a long period, so that the transition may not be very violent;
our manufactures would first feel the shock; the excess of population,
supported by them, would cease to be called into existence, as the
demand for their labor ceased; the cultivation of poor lands would
become less profitable, and their conversion into forests more so."
Where is the state in this union--I might, perhaps, safely ask, where
is the country in the world, that can surpass Virginia in the variety
of position and abundance of supply of this valuable combustible? She
possesses, not only in common with her sister states, a liberal
quantity of bituminous coal in her western and carbonaceous regions,
where, according to geological calculations, bituminous coal might be
reasonably expected to be found; but in the eastern division of the
state, within a few miles of the tide water of a majestic stream, which
empties its ample waters into the Atlantic ocean, in a geological
position, where bituminous coal never would have been sought after,
because bituminous coal could not there have ever been expected to have
been found, bituminous coal of a good quality, and apparently in great
abundance, has been found; nature seeming, as it were, in this
instance, to enable her to favor an otherwise highly favored land, to
have defied all her own rules, and baffled the skill of the gravest
geologist, by depositing bituminous coal upon the naked and barren
bosom of the uncarbonaceous granite! I have often wondered why this
anomaly did not strike the capacious and highly gifted mind of
Jefferson, and why he, or some other of the many reflecting men of
Virginia, was not led by it to inquire, what else there might be in
store for the good people of that state? By neglecting to seek for
them, we ungratefully reject the proffered kindness of our Creator; the
laws of inanimate matter are, in this respect, in unison with those
that govern animated nature; we are furnished with the material and
means, but in order to stimulate us to useful and healthful industry,
we must labor in their appropriation. God gives us the earth and the
seed, but we must plough and sow, or we can never reap; so he has
bountifully placed within our reach innumerable valuable rocks,
minerals and combustibles, but to enjoy them, we must delve into the
bowels of the earth--and having found them, we must, by various
laborious processes, render them fit for our use. To those who are
accustomed to regard these things, it is difficult to determine which
causes the most painful sensations, to observe how few coal mines, in
comparison to what might be, are opened in the neighborhood of
Richmond, or the want of skill exhibited in the selection and working
of those recently opened. Nor is the deposite of the bituminous coal
upon the granite, the only geological anomaly of this quarter.
Proceeding from Charlottesville towards Richmond, almost immediately
after you leave the Talcose formation of the Blue Ridge, you are
astonished at the fertility of the soil; you can scarcely persuade
yourself that you are travelling over a country of primitive rocks.
Soon, however, you discover that the fertility is not universal, but
confined to patches of a brick-red covering, that overlay the
disintegrated materials of the primordial formations, and upon seeking
further into this curious matter, your surprise is not a little
increased, upon discovering that this brick-red covering owes its
existence to the disintegration of a rock, which, in most other places,
is exceedingly slow to decompose, and which, when decomposed, forms a
cold and inhospitable soil. It is the _hornblende sienite_. Here it is
surcharged with iron, which oxidating by exposure to the atmosphere and
moisture, the rock freely disintegrates, and the oxide of iron being
set at liberty, imparts its coloring to the ground, and fertilizes the
soil in an extraordinary degree.
Professor Hitchcock, in his report of a geological survey of
Massachusetts, makes the following remarks in relation to the effect of
iron upon a soil:
"No ore except iron occurs in sufficient quantity in the state, to
deserve notice in an agricultural point of view. In the west part of
Worcester county, the soil, for a width of several miles across the
whole state, is so highly impregnated with the _oxide of iron_, as to
receive from it a very deep tinge of what is called iron rust. This is
particularly the case in the low grounds; where are frequently found
beds of bog ore. I do not know very definitely the effect of this iron
upon vegetation; but, judging from the general excellence of the farms
in the Brookfields, Sturbridge, Hardwicke, New Braintree, Barae,
Hubbardston, &c., I should presume it to be good. Certainly, it cannot
be injurious; for no part of the county exceeds the towns just named,
in the appearance of its farming interest--and nearly all the county,
as may be seen by the map, is of one formation. It would be an
interesting problem, which in that county can be solved, to determine
the precise influence of a soil highly ferruginous upon vegetation."
Next in geological and statistical importance, I would place the
mineral springs of Virginia; and these would form a legitimate subject
of investigation to those who should be appointed to conduct a
geological survey.
I am not aware of any portion of country of the same extent, possessing
an equal number and variety of mineral springs, as the counties of
Bath, Greenbrier and Monroe. This is a subject upon which one might
easily compose a book, but I must confine myself to a few lines. The
waters are thermal and cold; the former of various degrees of
intensity. They hold in solution a variety of metals, earths, acids,
and alkalies, combined in various proportions, and suited to relieve
the sufferings of invalids from a number of diseases. Mineral springs
of less interest than these, have excited the attention of the learned
in almost every age and country; and Virginia owes it to her high
mental standing, independently of every other consideration, to assist
the cause of science, by investigating the causes of the high
temperature, and making accurate analyses of these waters. It is the
duty of states, as it is of individuals, to furnish their quota to the
general stock of information; and this is peculiarly the duty of a
republican state, whose happiness, nay, whose very political existence,
depends upon an improved state of the minds of its citizens. Mr. John
Mason Good, in his "Book of Nature," after describing the barren state
of society in the middle ages, says, "we have thus rapidly travelled
over a wide and dreary desert, that, like the sandy wastes of Africa,
has seldom been found refreshed by spots of verdure, and what is the
moral? That ignorance is ever associated with wretchedness and vice,
and knowledge with happiness and virtue. Their connections are
indissoluble; they are woven in the very texture of things, and
constitute the only substantial difference between man and man," and I
would add, between state and state.
Has the heat of these waters any connection with volcanic phenomena? Or
is the temperature entirely chemical, originating in the decomposition
of sulphuret of iron, as I suggested some years ago in a paper
published upon the subject? At the Hot Springs, the hot sulphur water
and the cold pure water, issue out of the calcareous rock at the base
of the Warm Spring mountain, within a few feet of each other. One of
these Virginia Springs, makes a copious deposite of calcareous tufa;
and at another, you perceive newly formed crystals of sulphate of iron.
The White Sulphur Spring takes its name from a rich white deposite, and
the Red Sulphur from one of that color. If this is not an uncommon and
a highly interesting section of country, calling aloud for
investigation, and meriting legislative interference, then have I taken
an entirely erroneous view of the subject.
The Warm Spring mountain is white sandstone. The rocks of the valley of
the Hot Springs are calcareous, argillaceous and silecious; they are
all nearly vertical. At first the two former, and afterwards the two
latter, alternate. They have all been deposited in a horizontal
position, and between their narrow strata are thin layers of clay
covering organic remains.--Those of the lime and slate are principally
zoophytes. That of the silecious is the fossil described by Doctor R.
Harlan, from a specimen obtained by me in the western part of the state
of New York. He supposed it to be a now extinct vegetable fossil of the
family fucoides, and he has called it _Fucoide Brongniard_,--in honor
of M. Brongniard. But I suppose it to be _animal_, and to belong to the
family of the Encrinites.[1]
[Footnote 1: See an essay of Richard C. Taylor, F. G. S. on the
geological position of certain beds which contain numerous fossil
marine plants of the family fucoides; near Lewistown, Mifflin county,
Pennsylvania, in vol. I. part I. of the Transactions of the Geological
Society of Pennsylvania, page 1.]
The mountain ranges of Virginia are more numerous, and the valleys
consequently narrower, than they are in Pennsylvania; but some of them
are very interesting. The great valley, as it is sometimes called, or
par excellence, _the valley_, situate between the Blue Ridge and the
North and Alleghany Mountain, is by far the most extensive. The rocks
often obtrude, rendering the soil rather scanty, but nevertheless this
is a fine district of country.
I could find no fossils in this rock. In regard to the metallic ores, I
would observe, that I discovered sufficient indications of their
existing in Virginia in quantity sufficient to justify a more accurate
examination. Iron abounds in almost every part of the western section
of the state. Traces of copper, lead, manganese and chrome, have also
been discovered near the Blue Ridge; and the gold of Orange County is
equal to any found in the Carolinas or Georgia.
I have never seen any thing that exceeds the richness and variety of
coloring of the serpentine of the Blue Ridge. This mineral is easily
cut, and the fineness and closeness of the grain renders it susceptible
of a high polish. At Zoblitz in Saxony, several hundred persons are
employed in its manufacture. Besides the minerals belonging to the
Talcose formation, and generally accompanying serpentine, are many of
them valuable in the arts--for instance, steatite, (soap stone,) talc,
chromate of iron, clorite slate, and native magnesia. A geological
survey would, most probably, lead to the discovery of most of these
minerals.
I could make large additions to this communication, but for the fear of
trespassing upon your patience. I will, therefore, close my
observations with noticing two instances of want of confidence in the
mineral productions of your own state, which I am persuaded that a
geological survey would tend to correct. I met many wagons loaded with
sulphate of lime (gypsum,) from Nova Scotia, being taken to the
interior to be used as a manure; but I did not see one wagon employed
to bring carbonate of lime (common lime stone,) from the inexhaustible
quarries of the great valley to any other district to be used for the
same purpose. In the beautiful and flourishing city of Richmond, I
observed the fronts of two stores fitting up in the new and fashionable
style with granite (so called,) (sienite,) from Massachusetts, while
there exists in the James river, and on its banks, in the immediate
vicinity of the town, rocks of a superior quality, in quantities amply
sufficient to build a dozen cities.
I have the honor to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,