Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/217

 Two COMMONWEALTH BUILEKRS 209 fossils you have made, and I intended during my present visit to the Pacific Coast to come to Oregon and make your ac- quaintance personally and examine your fossil treasures which my friends, Professor George Davidson, Clarence King, Mr. Raymond, and others had often wished me to see.' And a little later Professor Marsh writes urging that all fossils of extinct mammals be sent to Yale to be used by him in a work on paleontology gotten out by the United States Government in connection with the survey of the fortieth parallel. ' ' During these years many Oregon fossils found their way to the educational centers of the East. If they were fossil leaves they were sent to Dr. Newberry of Columbia College ; if shells, to Dr. Dall of the American Museum of Natural History; if fossil mammals, to the Smithsonian or to Marsh of Yale or Cope of Philadelphia. A few of these were sold, some of them were sent in exchange for eastern fossils, but most of them were simply lent in order that they might be classified and described by scientific experts. "In May, 1871, Mr. Condon published in the Overland Monthly his paper on 'The Rocks of the John Day Valley.* And in November of that year his article entitled ' The Willam- ette Sound' appeared in the same magazine. The latter was perhaps his favorite of all his geological writings. He felt that 'The Rocks of the John Day Valley' might need revising after i more thorough exploration but that 'The Willamette Sound' would endure. Both of these papers are given in 'The Two Islands,' published in 1902. "Mr. Diller of the United States Geological Survey has virtually accepted 'The Willamette Sound' and incorporated its substance in his report of the geology of Northwestern Or- egon, his only criticism being the suggestion that the waters of the sound were probably even higher than noted in the original publication. These two papers fairly represent Mr. Condon's strength as a constructive geological worker. They indicate his ability to begin at ocean level and by means of mountain upheavals, marine and like sediments, fossil leaves and bones, and volcanic outflows, to reconstruct and make wonderfully vivid the geological past of a new country. "From this time on, the sense of lonely isolation that had so hampered him in his work, gave place to the most cordial inter- course between the Oregon pioneer and distinguished scientists of the United States and Canada. In 1871 Mr. Condon had the pleasure of showing Professor Marsh and a large party