THE NEW YORK GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 815 



thumb of a chamber-maid is mayhem just as surely as if it were the 

 thumb of the President. 



And so we might go on enumerating their rights in general, but 

 the purpose of this article has been attained to point out some of the 

 rights of servants more or less peculiar to their calling in life, in the 

 hope that a due recognition of them by those whom fortune has placed 

 on a higher social pedestal will contribute a little to mitigate the worst 

 evil of housekeeping. That it will eradicate the evil, or even be a 

 panacea for half the attendant woes, is not for a moment claimed or 

 expected. There are too many other independent elements at work to 

 keep up the evil. But as each single drop of water falling on the 

 stone helps to wear it away, so the observance of one form of relief 

 will do its little toward wearing away the trouble which began with 

 Hagai*, and will end Heaven only knows when. 



-- 



THE NEW YORK GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.* 



By JAMES HALL, LL. D., State Geologist. 



THE history of the Geological Survey of New York from 1835, 

 when the Legislature passed a resolution requesting the Secretary 

 of State to report a plan for a geological survey of the State, is very 

 easily traced, through the public documents and published reports 

 made since that period. The events preceding, and which led to that 

 action of the Legislature, are, however, of great interest and impor- 

 tance, and would of themselves form a very interesting chapter in the 

 history of scientific progress in the State of New York, and of the 

 country at large. 



The mineral resources of the State had been the subject of discus- 

 sion and inquiry even during the period of the Revolution ; and, soon 

 after the conclusion of peace, societies were formed for the purpose of 

 continuing these investigations, but so little of scientific knowledge 

 was at that time possessed that no systematic progress could be made 

 in this direction. The gradual but constantly increasing interest in 

 agriculture and the arts stimulated inquiry, and there were not want- 

 ing men of intelligence, wealth, and position to foster and encourage 

 such investigations. 



These indirect influences, which resulted in shaping public opinion 

 and making a geological survey possible, were for many years quietly 

 in operation ; and the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts, 

 and Manufactures, afterward the Society for the Promotion of Useful 

 Arts, instituted in the city of New York in 1791, laid the foundation 

 of scientific inquiry in the State, and its transactions afforded the 

 * From advance sheets of " The Public Service of the State of New York." 



