404. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



University of North Carolina, and after resigning his tutorship at 

 New Haven, Mr. Olmsted engaged in private studies in geology 

 with Prof. Silliman. He found at his new post two of his old 

 friends, Yale men like himself, occupying professorial chairs: 

 Elisha Mitchell, his former classmate, that of Mathematics and 

 Natural Philosophy, and Ethan A. Andrews that of Languages, 

 and here he spent seven happy years. 



In 1821 he laid before the Board of Internal Improvements of 

 North Carolina a proposition to undertake a geological survey of 

 the State, offering to perform the entire work himself gratuitously, 

 but suggesting an appropriation of one hundred dollars to defray 

 his necessary expenses in traveling, to be afterward renewed or 

 not at the pleasure of the board. The proposition was declined 

 by the Board of Internal Improvements, but the survey was after- 

 ward made under the direction of the State Board of Agriculture. 

 To this board Prof. Olmsted addressed his report, which was pub- 

 lished in two parts, in. 1824 and 1825, and filled in all about one 

 hundred and forty octavo pages. The American Journal of Science 

 observes of this survey that, regarded especially as the gratuitous 

 vacation work of a single individual, and in view of the state of 

 geological science in this country at the time, it " must certainly 

 be looked upon as creditable in the highest degree both to the en- 

 terprise and to the scientific ability of its projector ; and it has 

 undoubtedly been of great benefit, not only to the State which 

 authorized it, but to the country and to science generally, by the 

 stimulus which it afforded to similar enterprises in other States." 

 It was the first instance of one of the United States instituting a 

 geological survey. 



In the course of his work Prof. Olmsted gave the first geologi- 

 cal description of the Deep River coal beds and of the new red 

 sandstone accompanying, and referred the strata correctly to the 

 same age with that of the Richmond coal beds and the Connecti- 

 cut River sandstones. 



Prof. Olmsted began researches to determine the practicability 

 of obtaining illuminating gas from cotton seed, but removed to 

 the North before he had secured definite results. 



In 1825 Prof. Olmsted was appointed Professor of Mathematics 

 and Natural Philosophy in Yale College. In 183G this chair was 

 divided at his request, and the professorship of Mathematics was 

 assigned to A. D. H. Stanley. As a professor in Yale he performed 

 an unbroken service of thirty-four years, till it was interrupted 

 by his illness. His labors as a teacher during the last twenty years 

 of his life consisted, as described by Dr. Woolsey in The New- 

 Englander, " in teaching astronomy by a text-book, and in three 

 courses of lectures experimental ones on natural philosophy and 

 optics, historical ones on the progress of astronomical discovery. 



