in 1818, published a reprint of Phillips' elementary introduction to mineralogy, with notes. Professor Silliman, in the same year, established the "American Journal of Science," which most useful periodical is still continued. Mineralogy has always held a prominent place in that journal, and it contains many valuable papers, showing the progress of the science in this state. The Lyceum of Natural History, established in New York in 1818, and a similar institution founded at Albany, contain rich collections of minerals. The latter, through the liberality of Stephen Van Rensselaer and William Caldwell, has acquired a library which contains almost every important work in the department of natural science. From the period when the geological survey commenced, the progress of mineralogy has been identified with that of geology, and the present condition of that science appears in that portion of the "Natural History" devoted to the subject.

The history of geology in this country commences with the year 1807. William M'Clure, a native of Scotland, who had emigrated to the United States, revisited Europe in 1803. Imbued with a love for the study of natural history, and possessing ample fortune, he traversed large portions of Europe, acquiring geological knowledge. Prepared by these researches, he undertook, on his return to this country in 1807, at a time when scientific pursuits were little appreciated, to accomplish, by his own enterprise, a geological survey of the United States. His observations were made in almost every state and territory in the Union; and not only in populous districts, where the comforts which the traveller requires were afforded, but also in forests and dreary solitudes, unaffected by all the privations to which he was exposed. The unlettered inhabitants of remote districts, seeing him engaged in breaking fragments from rocks, supposed him to be a lunatic escaped from confinement. The facts which he accumulated, were communicated to the American Philosophical Society, and published in their "Transactions," in 1809. The author continued his investigations during a series of many years. But in pursuing his valuable discoveries, he, like his successors, was influenced not so much by a desire to obtain a correct classification of our strata, as to identify them with those of the eastern continent. The publication of Mr. M'Clure called into the field a few laborers, and engaged the attention of friends of science.

De Witt Clinton, in his Introductory Discourse delivered in 1814 before the "Literary and Philosophical Society of New York," censured the legislature for having refused, at a recent session, to lend its aid to the prosecution of searches for coal within this state; and in considering the objects worthy the attention of that association, he remarked that "Men of observation and science ought to be employed to explore our country, with a view to its geology, mineralogy, botany, zoology, and agriculture." The "American Journal of Science," the "American Monthly Journal of Geology," by Mr. Featherstonhaugh, and the transactions of scientific associations in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts, were very efficient in enlightening the public mind concerning the importance of mineralogy and geology. A board of agriculture having been established by the legislature, under the recommendation of De Witt Clinton, he proposed in his annual message, in 1819, that that board should be authorized to make a statistical survey of the state, and describe its animal, vegetable, and mineral productions. Not at all doubting that coal would be found to compensate for the waste of fuel in the western portion of the state, then destitute of facilities for communication with the Atlantic coast, he urged that premiums should be offered to promote a search. Private liberality, however, anticipated this recommendation. Stephen Van Rensselaer, in 1820, authorized Amos Eaton and T. Romeyn Beck to make an agricultural and geological survey of the county of Albany. The result of their examination was a description of the rocks and minerals of the county, with an analysis of a variety of soils, together with remarks upon the condition of agriculture. In the succeeding year, Professor Eaton, with the same liberal patronage, completed a similar survey of Rensselaer county. In 1823, the liberality of Mr. Van Rensselaer took a wider range, and Professor Eaton was authorized to extend his survey throughout the region traversed by the Erie canal. His report proposed a general geological nomenclature, and contained a description of the strata extending from Boston to Buffalo. This publication marked an era in the progress of geology in the country. It is, in some respects, inaccurate; but it must be remembered that its talented and indefatigable author was without a guide in exploring the older formations, and that he described rocks which no geologist had at that time attempted to classify. Rocks were then classified chiefly by their mineralogical characters, and the aid which the science has since learned to derive from fossils in determining the chronology and classification of rocks, was scarcely known here, and had only just begun to be appreciated in Europe. We are indebted, nevertheless, to Professor Eaton for the commencement of that independence of European classification which has been found indispensable in describing the New York system. For he remarks: "After examining our rocks with as much care and accuracy as I am capable of doing, I venture to say that we have at least five distinct and continuous strata, neither of which can with propriety take any name hitherto given and defined in any European treatise which has reached this country." Connected with the report, there was a view of the section of the rocks extending in the line of the canal through the state, and another from the Atlantic ocean to Pittsfield in Massachusetts, for the latter of which we are indebted to Edward Hitchcock, who has since completed a geological survey of Massachusetts, under the direction of the government of that state. Professor Eaton enumerated nearly all the rocks in Western New York, in their order of succession; and his enumeration has, with one or two exceptions, proved correct. It is a matter of surprise that he has recognised, at so early a period, the old red sandstone on the Catskill mountains; a discovery, the reality of which has since been proved by fossil tests. Had he followed up this discovery, he could not have failed to learn what an immense series of rocks lay below the old red sandstone, at that time entirely unclassified.

The munificence of Mr. Van Rensselaer, in producing such results, is illustrated by this remark addressed to him in Professor Eaton's report: "You have furnished every facility for perfecting the work. You have set no limits to my expenses, nor those of the engravers and printers." The public mind was now becoming prepared for the state surveys which have since been effected. North Carolina has the honor of having been the first to send geologists into the field. Professor Olmstead's report upon the economical geology of that state was published in 1825. Since that time, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware, Kentucky, Georgia, Arkansas, and Iowa, and perhaps other states and territories, have been explored. In 1835, the assembly of this state, upon the motion of Charles P. Clinch, a representative from New York, passed a resolution directing the secretary of state to report to the legislature, at its next session, the most expedient method for obtaining a complete geological survey of the state, which should furnish a perfect and scientific account of rocks and soils and their localities, and a list of all its mineralogical, botanical, and zoological productions, and for procuring and preserving specimens of the same, with an estimate of the expense of the undertaking. John A. Dix, secretary of state, in January, 1836, submitted a report in pursuance of this resolution. That luminous and satisfactory document led to the passage of the act of the 15th of April, 1836, in the execution of which, and of the acts of May 8, 1840, and of April 9, 1842, the survey has been made.* William L. Marcy, governor, arranged the plan of the survey in the summer of 1836, and assigned its departments as follows: The zoological department to James E. De Kay; the botanical department to John Torrey; the mineralogical and chemical department to Lewis C. Beck; the geological department to William W. Mather, Ebenezer Emmons, Timothy A. Conrad, and Lardner Vanuxem. This arrangement was subsequently altered by the institution of a palæontological department, under the care of Mr. Conrad, and by the appointment of James Hall to supply his place as a geologist. The results of the survey appear in thirteen large quarto volumes, and in eight several collections of specimens of the animals, plants, soils, minerals, rocks, and fossils, found within the state, one of which collections constitutes a museum of natural history at the capital of the state, and the others are distributed among its collegiate institutions.

It can not be necessary to dwell upon the benefits secured by the survey. It is not more necessary to know what resources are withheld from us than to understand those which Providence has been pleased to bestow. In regard to the narrow purpose in which the survey originated, it is no unprofitable result to know that coal can not be found within the state, and that we must depend for supplies of that mineral on trade with the countries with which we are connected. The want of coal, however, is

* It may be stated with just pride, that the law of 1836, appropriating the sum of $104,000 to the survey, was passed by the assembly unanimously. A further appropriation of $26,000 was made by the law of 1842.

compensated by the discovery of rich deposites of salt, lime, marl, peat, and gypsum, and of plumbago, copper, zinc, lead, and iron. The field within which economical science has recently pursued its investigations, with results so well calculated to exalt our sentiments of wonder, gratitude, and devout veneration, and so propitious to the future welfare and happiness of our race, is greatly enlarged, and many obstructions to those investigations are removed. Although, thus far, the survey has resulted only in adding accumulations to the mass of facts already acquired, yet even that is no unworthy contribution to human knowledge; and it may be hoped that a spirit of inquiry has been stimulated, which will not rest content until that philosophical classification of facts shall be made, which is necessary to enable us to read with accuracy the imperishable pages on which the physical history of the earth is written. What new light the discoveries thus to be made in cosmogony will throw upon the designs of the Creator and the destiny of our race, can not now be conjectured; but it is enough to stimulate and reward our highest efforts, to know that the human mind is perpetually active, while the range of research is infinite.