In 1830, having returned to Philadelphia, he purchased a farm near Bristol, Pa., and soon after married a daughter of his neighbor, John Newbold, Esq., of Bloomsdale. His farm remained the home of himself and family for the remainder of his life, about seventeen years. "While he often assisted with his own hands," says Dr. Lea, "in the cultivation of the farm, he never at any moment ceased to cultivate his already extensive acquirements in geology, mineralogy, and chemistry, nor to add to a collection of specimens of great extent and rareness."
In 1836, at the solicitation of Governor Marcy, he entered upon what has been pronounced "one of the most magnificent investigations ever made in the geological developments of any country or by any government"—the geological survey of the State of New York. The results are given in Geology of New York, Third District, Albany, 1842. The Third District, of which Prof. Vanuxem had charge, comprised fourteen counties in the central part of the State. The scope of the work performed by Prof. Vanuxem and his colleagues is thus indicated by Prof. James Hall:[1] "During the few years of field work the New York geologists had harmonized the conflicting views before entertained regarding the relations of the geology of the eastern and western parts of the State; they had traced the boundaries of the successive geological formations, had shown the extent and limits of the iron-bearing strata, and had rectified the erroneous views which had been held till some time after the commencement of the survey regarding the boundaries and distribution of the salt-bearing formation of the State. They had also shown the limits of the granitic formations and their associated mineral products, the thickness and extent of all the limestone, sandstone, and shale formations of the State, and had definitely settled the relations of the rocks of New York to the coal measures of Pennsylvania and the geological formations of the Western States."
The important service rendered to geological science in the matter of nomenclature by the members of this survey is also described by Prof. Hall, as follows: "Since there was no possibility of identifying the individual rocks and groups of strata with those of Europe, as described, the New York geologists were compelled to give names to the different members of the series; and since the sandstones, limestones, slates, and shales are so similar in different and successive groups, it was impossible to give descriptive names which would discriminate the one from the other. Therefore local names were proposed and adopted—as, for example, Potsdam sandstone, Trenton limestone, Niagara limestone, and Niagara shale (the two latter, with subordinate beds,
- ↑ In The Public Service of the State of New York.
