ACADEMY OF NATUEAL SCIENCES. 29 



provided, the value and importance of it to the people will soon be made so 

 clear, that it will be sustained and fostered by the Legislature. 



By the terms of the Act of the Legislature authorizing a Geological Survey 

 of the State of California, it was made the duty of the State Geologist to pre- 

 sent to the Governor, to be laid before the Legislature, as near as may be to 

 the beginning of each session, a " Report of Progress," in which the operations 

 of the Survey during the preceding year should be set forth, and its more import- 

 ant practical results made public. He is also required to communicate an 

 account of the expenditures, and to furnish estimates for the continuance of the 

 Survey. 



By an Act of the Legislature of 1862, however, the State Geologist was 

 authorized to combine his first and second annual reports into one volume, to be 

 printed during the winter of 1862 and 1863, and an appropriation of $3,000 

 was made to pay the expenses of printing, engraving, etc., while the size, form, 

 and style of the report, and the place of printing, were left to the discretion of 

 the State Geologist, under the advice and with the approval of the Governor. 



According to this, there is a report now due the State ; but, as no part of 

 the appropriation of last year for the continuance of the Survey has been yet 

 received, or is likely to be, for months to come, and as the appropriation for 

 printing is in the same condition, the work has been necessarily delayed. As it 

 is presumed that the amount due the Survey from last year will be available 

 some time next winter, it is not anticipated that there will be any difficulty in 

 issuing the first volume ; and, if the Legislature takes the necessary steps early 

 in the session, two, or perhaps three, volumes can be published in 1864. It is 

 intended that they shall be of royal octavo size, in the best style of typography, 

 and illustrated with maps, sections, plates of fossils, etc. The maps will be en- 

 graved on copper and printed from transfers, in order the original plates may be 

 preserved, to be used, after necessary corrections and revisions, in the final report, 

 or otherwise, as may be found desirable. The maps will be sold separately, with 

 or without the geological coloring, as desired. The first volume will be 

 chiefly devoted to the geology of the Coast Ranges ; the second to that of the 

 Sierra Nevada and the mining districts of the eastern slope. If my plans are 

 not thwarted by the Legislature, both these volumes will be issued together 

 next year, and will form a " Report of a Geological Reconnoissance of the State 

 of California." By the law. as it now stands, the publications of the Survey 

 are required to be copy-righted, and sold for the benefit of the Common School 

 Fund ; hence, it has been impossible to communicate to the public, from time 

 to time, through the medium of the Academy's publications, the results which 

 have been obtained. It is proper to say, in this connection, that the extent of 

 territory to be examined, the complexity of the phenomena, and the bearing 

 which our investigations will have on important questions of economical interest, 

 make it eminently proper that .there should not be an undue haste exhibited, on 

 the part of the Survey, to place its results before the world. We can only hope 

 to influence the mining public, in this State, by degrees ; and it is necessary, 

 first of all, that it should be made clearly to appear, with the lapse of time, that 

 our statements are to be relied on as closely approximating to the truth. 



