By the middle of the nineteenth century, leaders of the French geological community were taking a keen interest in North American geological phenomena and investigations. Most of this French attention to American geology developed during the first half of the nineteenth century. French geological preoccupations in America during that period tended to focus especially on issues of stratigraphic correlation and paleontology, with discernible concern also for the North American glacial (drift) phenomena, mineral ores, and meteorite observations. The growth of French regard for American geologists and for America as a geological resource, up to 1850, displays features of international cooperation and communication especially plain in such a location-specific science. Historical development of communal scientific activity is seen in travel accounts, and in exchanges of publications and specimens. The Société Géologique de France, founded in 1830, quickly became an important vehicle for commerce in geological knowledge between America and France. French respect for American geological work in the first part of the nineteenth century illustrates the comparatively early maturity of American geological science.

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