Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
| Online Publication Date: 05 Nov 2007
George Catlin's Geology
George Catlin's Geology
Page Range: 56 – 59
George Catlin, the noted Nineteenth Century painter of American Indians had a deep interest in geology which, in the late years of his life, was to lead him far astray. He wrote a strange little book, entitled The Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America, that was published by Trubner & Co. of London in 1870. In that work Catlin hypothesized that under the great mountain chains of North and South America there existed subterranean vaults, through which tumultuous rivers ran, debouched in the Gulf of Mexico, and intermingled to become the Gulf Stream. The fury of this torrent flung American Indians, clinging to driftwood and rafts, as far as the coasts of Europe.
Catlin, George, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of North American Indians: Dover. N.Y., 1973. vols.
Catlin, George, The Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America, with Their Influences on the Oceanic, Atmospheric, and Land Currents: Trubner, London, 1870.
Catlin, George, Episodes from Life Among the Indians and Last Rambles: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1959.
Ewers, John C., Artists of the Old West: Doubleday & Co., N.Y., 1965.
Haberly, Lloyd, Pursuit of the Horizon, a Life of George Catlin: Macmillan, N.Y., 1948.
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Roehm, Marjorie Catlin, The Letters of George Catlin and his Family. Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, 1966.