USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 35
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712
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
The early plan of collegiate education adopted by Kentucky was the endowment by the State of one university. It was the settled conviction of some of our earliest statesmen that the endowment of more than one college in the State would be an injury to higher education. The grounds of this belief are well stated by Dr. Charles Caldwell, in his discourse on the genius and character of Dr. Holley. His position may be briefly, but imperfectly, stated, as follows :
First-To be in character and efficiency worthy of a State, a university must be supported by all the wealth of the Commonwealth. Divide these means and nothing great can be accomplished. Nothing distinguished can come from a dwarfish school. " Divide and be conquered " has been the banner motto of the greatest soldiers of the world.
Second-When a State is filled with a number of colleges, its scholars are as puny as the institutions they represent, and, to be educated, indi- viduals must go abroad, or educate themselves.
Third-To endow and maintain more than one college produces sectional feelings and local jealousies. A ruinous compromise of interests will be the result, and the entire concern will run into confusion and endin failure.
The experiment of a well-endowed State university has never been thor- oughly tried in Kentucky. Transylvania University was, for a short time, feebly aided by the State, and even then became the admiration and pride of the West. While Transylvania was allowed to decline for want of suf- ficient pecuniary aid, other colleges sprang up in different parts of the State, having the advantage of local partialities, and a widely-diffused religious zeal in their favor. The State university was girdled on all sides by rival institutions. Without a sufficient support from the Commonwealth, it could not stand the competition of younger institutions. After a short and checkered career, Transylvania University was transferred to one of the great religious denominations of the State. The story of its rise and fall is fraught with many lessons of value. What benefit will be reaped from these lessons in the future remains to be seen.
1
713
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY.
CHAPTER XXX.
The Physical Geography of Kentucky. -
Position, area, and boundaries. Its surface.
Within the Mississippi basin.
Mountainous area.
Elevations and depressions.
Geographical and geological map.
Professor Procter, State geologist.
Geological explanations by colorings of map.
Subterranean caverns and streams.
Mammoth Cave.
Two hundred miles of avenues.
Major William J. Davis.
Coal measures.
Seven hundred miles of river boundaries and four thousand miles of river naviga- tion.
Climate medium and moderate.
Meteorological characteristics.
Classification of soils.
Order of succession of rocks.
Geological formations and strata.
Mineral resources.
Fourteen thousand square miles of coal- fields.
More than in Pennsylvania or in Eng- land.
Twenty thousand square miles of iron- ore.
Other minerals and stone. Forest vegetation of Kentucky.
Differs with geological changes.
Native forests yet fifteen million acres of fine timber.
The " Barrens " country. Products in tobacco, hemp, grain, etc.
Grasses, fruits, and stock-raising.
Its animals, historic and pre-historic. Birds and fishes. Archeology. Mound-builders and their remains. Rafinesque's early catalogue.
Progress of Medical Science and Literatur. in Kentucky.
Dr. Thomas Walker, first physician in Kentucky.
First surgical operation.
Dr. Ridgely's adventures and visit.
Dr. Samuel Brown.
First in America to vaccinate for small- pox, and at Lexington.
First medical faculty of Transylvania University.
Dr. Benjamin W. Dudley's renown.
McDowell, the first ovariotomist in the world.
James K. Polk and other patients.
The galaxy of medical lights of early Kentucky not surpassed in any country.
Inventions and skill of these.
Dr. Walter Brashear, of Bardstown.
Dr. McCreary, of Hartford, Kentucky,
Dr. Alban Goldsmith, of Danville.
Drs. Sutton, of Georgetown, and Bow- man, of Harrodsburg.
Dr. Henry Miller.
Dr. William Gardner, of Woodsonville.
Others of noteworthy fame.
Medical institutions at Louisville.
Dr. Charles Caldwell.
Faculty of University of Louisville.
Kentucky School of Medicine.
Dr. Middleton Goldsmith.
History of Kentucky Jurisprudence. Its First Period :
First Constitution and laws of England and Virginia.
Contrasts then and now.
First legislative enactments.
Conflicting claimant laws.
Mitigation of penalties for crimes.
First penitentiary. Different courts. Few laws of protection or relief yet.
714
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
The Second Period :
The second Constitution of 1800.
Progress in judicial and legislative re- form. Incidents of enumeration. " Bob Johnson's law."
Against duelling and deadly weapons. Era of banks.
Federal and State decisions conflict.
Commonwealth's Bank and its issues. Old and new courts.
Amos Kendall's comment on new laws. Judge Bibb's opinion. Temperance legislation. State charities and corporations.
The Third Period:
Progress in education and internal im- provements.
Congressional aid bills vetoed.
State omnibus improvement bill.
Growth of pro-slavery sentiment.
Constitution of 1849.
Other legislation.
Revised statutes by Turner, Nicholas, and Wickliffe.
The Fourth Period :
Growth of corporations. Material progress. The civil war era. Peculiar laws of this era.
Amendments to the United States Con- stitution.
Adjustment of laws to same.
Rights conceded to colored citizens.
Precedents and rulings of our courts.
Malice and moral insanity.
Dangers from corporations.
Obscene literature.
Empiricism.
Defective revenue system.
Protective and relief statutes.
Different periods reflect the popular sen- timent of their day.
Editors of Kentucky.
George D. Prentice.
Walter N. Haldeman.
Robert M. Kelly.
Henry Watterson.
Emmett G. Logan.
1 The Physical Geography of Kentucky-Position, Arca, and Boundaries .- The State of Kentucky lies between the parallels of latitude 36° 30' and 39° 6' north of the equator, and between S2º 2' and 89º 40' longitude west from Greenwich, or 5° and 12º 38' longitude west from Washington City.
The Ohio river forms its northern, north- western, and north-eastern boundary, and sepa- rates it from the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. A part of its north-eastern border is formed by the Big Sandy river, which separates it from West Virginia. Its south-eastern face is bounded by the Cumberland ranges of mount- ains. An arbitrary line nearly three hundred miles long separates it from Tennessee. The western boundary is formed by the Mississippi river, which divides it from Missouri.
The entire perimeter of the State is twelve hundred and forty-two miles, of which six hun- dred and forty-two extend along the Ohio, one hundred and twenty along the Big Sandy, one
HON. JOHN R. PROCTER.
1 Paper by William J. Davis, Louisville,; Kentucky.
715
THE GEOLOGY OF KENTUCKY.
hundred and thirty along the Cumberland range, three hundred measure the Tennessee border, and fifty lie along the Mississippi. Its greatest length is four hundred and eleven miles; extreme breadth one hundred and seventy- nine miles. Its area is about forty thousand square miles. Its out- line may be likened to that of a roughly-hewn stone arrow-head.
Surface .- The whole of Ken- tucky lies within the Mississippi basin, occupying a position nearly central among the States that form its eastern slope, and within the special division of the valley of the Ohio, of which it forms the southern slope. With the ex- ception of its mountainous area, containing not more than four thousand square miles, the State is a gently-inclined tableland, slop- ing from the south-east toward the north-west. The Cumberland ranges of mountains rear their IN MUUU id. J. DAVIS. heads from two thousand to twen- ty-four hundred feet above the level of the sea, but few of the ridges reach more than seven hundred feet above the valley bottoms. Along the Mis- sissippi, the average height above the sea is about three hundred feet. .The surface of this tilted plateau is comparatively little broken, except the deep-cutting rivers, whose banks are often several hundred feet high.
The territory lying on both sides of the Louisville and Nashville railroad, south of Elizabethtown, has its surface marked by broad bowl-shaped depres- sions, or sink-holes, into which mouths of caverns frequently open. Many of these caves intersect one another and ramify like confluent rivers. Their floors are often dry, and their avenues and chambers so spacious that they may be explored without difficulty. Some idea of their vast extent may be formed when it is said that the " Mammoth Cave " is a system of galleries, avenues and chambers, some of them sixty feet wide and as many high, aggregating two hundred miles in length; while in Edmonson county, in which it occurs, more than five hundred separate openings penetrate the earth. Adventurous parties from all parts of the world visit this wonderful region to explore its cavern-ways. Probably many thousand miles of these passages are accessible. Their magnitude impresses the minds of explorers with awe, while stalagmitic masses of carbonate of lime and pendent stalac- tites of the same mineral compound, and efflorescent ceilings of gypsum, reflecting from their crystalline surfaces scintillant gleams of torches, or of the lights of numerous lanterns, present a scene of surpassing beauty and
716
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
sublimity. " Mammoth Cave " justly ranks as one of the greatest natural curiosities.
In the eastern and south-eastern portions of the State, and lying upon both sides of the lower half of Green river, are situated the " coal meas- ures," or carboniferous limestones, which areas are cut into frequent narrow valleys, with steep ridges on each side.
That part of the surface indicated as "tertiary" is more properly the quaternary formation. It lies wholly west of the Tennessee river, and is comparatively level, with low-banked rivers, which, when swollen by fresh- ets, overflow the adjacent country.
Rivers .- The river boundary of Kentucky is seven hundred and thirty- three miles. Within its limits are more than four thousand miles of rivers, mostly navigable throughout the year. Chief among these is the Ohio, called by the early French explorers of the Mississippi valley " La Belle Riviere," a stately, beautiful stream, navigable nearly the year around by the largest steamboats, and forming a great highway for the carrying trade of the States through which it flows. The only natural obstacle to its free navigation at low water has been found in the rapids, improperly called " the Falls," at Louisville, but boats may pass around this impediment through a lock canal, mainly constructed and now operated by the Federal Government. The Big Sandy, a turbid stream, whose name is derived from the large amount of moving sand washed from the sand-rocks which com- pose the beds of its tributaries; the Licking, fourth in size; the Kentucky, second of the Kentucky streams in volume and first in length, with four hundred miles of front, flowing through a region of picturesque beauty and abounding in valuable mineral products, such as coal, iron ore, salt, fire- clay, and hydraulic cement : Green river, one-third larger than the Ken- tucky, flowing through extensive coal-fields, rich in coals of varied quality and in iron-ores; the Cumberland, whose upper half and lower sixth courses through Kentucky, cutting through vast coal-fields and wide-spreading forest tracts; the Tennessee, which, coursing through South-western Kentucky, debouches into the majestic Ohio; the mighty Mississippi, washing the ex- treme western border-all these, with their tributaries, go to form a river system equaled by few States and surpassed by none of like area.
Climate .- The numerous rivers and large areas of forests render the at- mosphere humid, and thus moderate the winter's cold and the summer's heat. The mean annual temperature is about fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit, the thermometer taking a usual range of a hundred degrees, although rarely marking as high as ninety-five degrees in midsummer, but the changes of temperature are often sudden and violent. putting the constitutions of feeble folk to a severe test. Notwithstanding, the adult population shows a large proportion of robust men and women, endowed with great physical vigor and health, and surpassing in size any other peoples of America or Europe. The prevalent winds blow from the south and south-west. Winds from the
717
DESCRIPTION OF SOILS.
west are usually cloud-bearing. North-west winds bring the " cold waves" and the bitter "blizzards" of midwinter; but tornadoes or cyclonic blasts have rarely invaded the domain of this State.
Precipitation of moisture occurs with well-distributed regularity through- out the year, and agriculture is favored by seasonable rains and snows. The average annual rain-fall is about sixty inches in the Cumberland ranges and forty-five inches along the Ohio river. The number of days of sunshine, however, is relatively large.
Epidemic diseases have never proved destructive, and, although - many forms of acute diseases of malarial origin occur, only in a limited territory, where the elevation above the sea is less than three hundred and fifty feet, and where the soils are alluvial and relatively non-porous, have miasmatic fevers ever prevailed. The number of persons who attain to great age in the full enjoyment of all their faculties is remarkable. .
Soils .-- Inasmuch as soils are primarily derived from the disintegration of rocks, it would seem to be not inappropriate to give here a brief description of rock formation and decomposition, with a sketch of the order of succession .of these several formations and their occurrence in Kentucky. Part of a carefully and ably-prepared article on this subject is here transcribed :
1 " Geologists divide rocks into three classes-first, sedimentary rocks, or stratified limestones and sandstones; second, metamorphic rocks, whose originally-laminated structure has been somewhat changed by the action of hot water ; third, igneous rocks, whose primitive structure has been totally transformed under the melting influences of fervid heat.
" Of the last class, lava, trap, pumice, tufa, and other scoriaceous ma- terials in a molten state, ashes, cinders, etc., thrown up by local volcanic outbursts and afterward consolidated, are common examples. No rocks of igneous origin occur in Kentucky, or, indeed, are met with in the Mississippi valley. Although it might prove interesting to describe these and to show how the different energetic forms of igneous agency, by raising land areas and lowering ocean floors, tend to wrinkle the earth's face more and more, and thus enlarge the surfaces of continents and increase their elevation, while, on the other hand, atmospheric forces are constantly cutting down the continents and filling up the seas, we must pass on after making one remark : To whatever immediate cause volcanoes and earthquakes may be attributed, their action is confined within comparatively-limited areas. Earthquakes produce cracks and fissures; volcanic outbursts erect single cone-shaped peaks. Mountain chains, sometimes ridging the earth's surface in lines hardly broken for ten thousand miles, like the American Cordilleras, can not be produced by an inner pent-up force acting outwardly, but are the effects of the slow, secular cooling of the earth's interior and its consequent contrac- tion along radial lines converging toward the center. Observe that this con- traction must compress surface matter horizontally, and, since a spherical
1 Major William J. Davis in Farmers' AAlmanac, 1883.
718
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
segment containing a given quantity of matter can not be squeezed into lesser bulk and retain its form, and because the form must change at the surface, we have the softer and weaker parts of the mass giving away as they are pushed out of place by the more rigid portions, and protruding far be- yond the common level. You will have no difficulty in understanding this when I tell you that along certain lines of sea-coast there may be segrega- tions of sand or mud to the depth of many thousand feet, and that an in- spection of geological maps will show conclusively that mountain chains trend parallel with the ancient coast lines of gradually-receding seas. Let us note further that this work is done in no indecent haste, as is that of earth- quakes and volcanoes, but so slowly as to be imperceptible to generation after generation of men living near the theater of action: in truth, many thousand years pass between the beginning and the end, as shown in the grand chain, counting its length by circumferential degrees and numbering its breadth by leagues.
" If a plastic mass of mud, sand, and water stretches along the ocean shore for a great distace, and lies along the bottom far out from land to the depth of ten, twenty, or thirty thousand feet, two or three miles below the upper layers, the superincumbent pressure would boil and seethe the mass and metamorphose its laminated form as if a Titanic hand had stirred its depths, and, as the mass slowly yields to the horizontal squeeze we have al- . ready alluded to, this metamorphosed portion, rising with the rest, but re- maining always under it, when the whole protruding mass, evaporating and cooling by conduction, should have become solidified, would form the axis or backbone of the chain. This is true-the axial interior of every mountain chain is metamorphic or granitic rock.
"We have said that the chain may be many thousand miles long and several hundred miles wide. It is not often a single ridge or continuous elevated plateau but is longitudinally divided by great valleys into ranges more or less parallel. The ranges also are divided into ridges by smaller valleys. This is the primitive form of the chain when first squeezed up, but after the lapse of ages, during which it is exposed to rain and wind, frost and sunshine, the ridges are divided transversely, and peaks and cross val- veys serrate the linear crests. Atmospheric waters penetrate the fissures and pores of the rocks, frost and sunshine break off great masses and crumble them into atoms, rains descending run from the crests in furrows, the rills trickle along these furrows, and many of them uniting deepen their beds into gullies, and these joining form cañons, and these coming together make valleys through which the rivers flow onward to the sea. The powdered-rock debris, more or less fine, is borne along by these waters as sediment and distributed by them in their course. What is carried to the seas sinks, in time, to the bottom and is spread over it, the coarser particles settling first, then the finer, and so on with intermissions, so that the sediments are assorted in several layers of greater or less thickness. The skeletons of dead marine
719
FORMATION OF ROCKS.
animals and the solid parts of sea-plants thickly bestrew the floor and are slowly covered by the silt. These are succeeded by other bones and shells, leaves and stems, which in turn are buried under the slime and sand slowly precipitated. Layer after layer, each entombing organic remains, thus oc- curs, and, solidifying and rising above the level of the waters, offers to the forces of the atmosphere the materials for more rock-making. All rocks have been formed in this way. The oldest outcropping rocks bear testimony that they have been formed of the materials of pre-existing rocks.
"It is plain that, since rocks are thus derived, it will happen that strata and groups of strata widely separated vertically will closely resemble, be- cause they will often contain in similar proportions the same materials. Hence, if these are widely separated geographically, an examination of their lithological structure or a chemical analysis of their materials would discover ORDER OF SUCCESSION OF ROCKS.
AGE.
FORMATION.
Psychozoic, or Age of Man.
Recent.
Quaternary.
. 4,000 feet.
Pliocene.
Cenozoic, or Recent Age.
Miocene.
Eocene.
Cretaceous,
-
Mesozoic, or Middle Age.
Jurassic.
. 1,200 feet.
Triassic.
Permian.
Carboniferous.
24,100 feet.
no difference in age, and would lead to GREATEST the conclusion that such apparently sim- EXPOSURE IN NORTH AMERICA ilar rocks were synchronously formed. The palæontologist-he who has studied the buried bones of corals, worms, and fishes, the fossil shells of urchins, trilo- bites, snails, and mussels, the fibrous stems and veined leaves of fucoids and sea grasses-can alone settle this ques- tion of the order of occurrence of strata and their geological times.
Subcarbonifer- ous. "The science of geology concerns Palæozoic, or Ancient Age. Devonian. 15,250 feet. the history of the earth developing age Upper Silur- ian, 8,000 ft. after age, under the influence of mechan- 56,co feet. ical and chemical agencies, and of the Lower Silur- ian, 48,000 ft. living things that once have populated . Archæan, or Huronian. 52,750 feet. Earliest Age. Laurentian. it. To constitute a science, knowledge must have been formulated and system- atized. Homogeneous layers of rock in any one locality would naturally be grouped together in strata, homogeneous strata would be joined in groups, groups would be comprised in formations, several formations classed together would make ages, and all would be placed in ascending serial order. This could be done with little trouble and labor were vertical sections to be seen many thousand feet high, but when a small outcrop takes place here and a meager exposure there, it is not so easy. Chemists, mineralogists, litholo- gists, and stratigraphists have done good work in this direction, but they have also heaped confusion upon this department of the science, from which the palæontologists are gradually extricating it. The table above shows the order of occurrence in an ascending series. I omit the subdivision of groups. Only in the mountains that border the Mississippi valley or in insulated spots do the granitic rocks of the Archæan Age outcrop. These rocks are
--
720
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
largely metalliferous. Decomposing, they make argillacious soils stiff, usu- ally watery, and containing no lime. The formations take their name from the Laurentine mountains and Lake Huron, where the rocks are best ex- posed.
" Limestones and sandstones make up the formations of the Paleozoic Age.
"The Silurian formation, so named from Silures, the Latin designation of the inhabitants of Wales, by Sir R. Murchison, who first described these rocks as characteristic of Wales, is divided into lower and upper. There is no reason why these rocks should be associated together under one name, since they differ essentially in lithological character and in fossil remains. While good building and paving limestones occur in the lower Silurian, the rocks are generally soft, and crumble rapidly on exposure. Trees strike their roots deep into the incoherent mass and are vivified with luxuriant beauty. The rapidly-disintegrating rock, succumbing to atmospheric vicis- situdes, makes a porous soil, light as vegetable mould and rich in lime, phos- phates, carbonates, and silicates. These are the bluegrass' lands of the Mississippi valley, where the finest breeds of horses and cattle are raised, where hemp, tobacco. and all the cereals are grown most abundantly. The superficies of a lower silurian region is undulating or thickly interspersed with high conical hills.
"The upper silurian rocks, containing often micaceous and aluminous elements, are usually converted into moist clays, fruitful under cultivation, but not rivaling the soils of the lower silurian. The river banks in this formation are generally precipitous bluffs, the sides of glens are steep, but the upper country is a level, arable plateau. Such falls as those of Niagara are possible only to rivers that cut through these rocks.
" The devonian clays, rich in lime and organic remains, offer soils su- perior generally to those of the upper silurian, save where they are covered with decomposed shale that separates this from the superincumbent carbon- iferous rocks. The stiff, light-colored clays derived from this shale have a strong body, but are deficient in lime and are soggy. If thoroughly drained and tilled, they will produce well, especially if, furthermore, they are ma- nured with land-plaster, will they yield the largest returns of clover and timothy hay. The surface of the devonian formation is characterized by low, broad-based, round-topped hills, which, unless set in deep-rooted grasses or carefully tilled, will be furrowed with gullies ever widening and deepen- ing. The term 'Devonian' is derived from Devonshire, England, where these rocks were first described.
"The carboniferous or coal-bearing limestones afford a great diversity of soils, but the conglomerate, or sandstones cementing pebbles together, are the most unproductive. Extensive sandstones intercolate the fossiliferous limestones, and, of course, need vegetable mould and barn-yard manures and phosphates. But the limestones that underlie the coal measures produce
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