ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. I 



terprise and ability which he displayed in advancing- the publi- 

 cation of these much needed and deeply interesting- volumes. 



And here allow me to say, that it may be confidently hoped 

 that the present session of the Legislature will take a generous 

 and extended view of the scientific requirements of our age, and 

 see fit to revive the Geological Survey, thus completing its pre- 

 vious work and bringing its former labors into active usefulness. 

 I know that this question is viewed by different minds under 

 different aspects, and that there are many well-meaning people 

 in the State who will regard such a movement with disfavor. 

 This arises partly in consequence of the want of practical value 

 of the achievements of the survey so far as it has gone, and 

 partly from the utter inability of some minds to appreciate the 

 use of scientific work altogether. With the latter class it is use- 

 less to argue. Time and results alone can effect a change in 

 them. But the former may candidly be allowed to have some 

 just cause of complaint, the economic wealth of our State not 

 having been, in the comprehensive views of the chief of the Sur- 

 vey, yet reached in the plan he had laid down; but in the future, 

 if the government of the State should see fit to grant a sum for 

 the continuance of the Survey, it may be entirely within its prov- 

 ince to say for what particular ends that sum is granted. If 

 money be given for a special purpose, it is only fair that the 

 giver should have something to say about the carrying out of the 

 work; and if it should be deemed that a volume on the economic 

 geology of the State, or on the insects injurious to agriculture, 

 would be, as suggested by the press, of morefimmediate and 

 personal benefit than one on paleontology, I fail to see the un- 

 reasonableness of the demand that these subjects should at any 

 rate be first perfected and given to the people. The rest of the 

 work would most assuredly follow in good time, and, year by 

 year, it is hoped that our legislators will feel more interest in the 

 pursuits and needs of scientific culture, and that the grandeur of 

 their schemes lies not in looking to the immediate time, but 

 stretching in its operation far out into the future, it expands 

 into its fullest power and conveys its perfect influence to the 

 generations yet to come. It is, I believe, intended that the mat- 

 ter of the Survey will be brought on its merits before the present 

 Legislature, and I only thus briefly allude to it here to place on 

 record the opinion of this Academy, as the representative of the 



