56 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



mineralogical subjects which are furnished to his hand. The 

 third Vice-President, Professor Cleaveland, is successfully em 

 ployed in elucidating and familiarizing those interesting scenes ; 

 and thus smoothing the rugged paths of the student. Professor 

 Mitchill has amassed a large store of materials and annexed them 

 to the labors of Cuvier and Jameson. The drudgery of climbing 

 cliffs and descending into fissures and caverns, and of traversing 

 in all directions our most rugged mountainous districts, to ascer- 

 tain^the distinctive characters, number, and order of our strata, 

 has devolved upon me."* 



Eaton has very fairly defined his own position among the early 

 geologists, which was that of an explorer and pioneer. The epi 

 thet, u Father of American Geology," which has sometimes been 

 applied to him, might more justly be bestowed upon Maclure, or 

 even upon Mitchill. The name of Amos Eaton [b. 1776, d. 

 1872] will always be memorable, on account of his connection 

 with the geological survey of New York, which was begun in 

 1820, at the private expense of Hon. Stephen Van Rensselaer ; 

 also as the founder, in 1824, of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Insti 

 tute, the first of its class on the continent. 



The State of New York was not pre-eminently prompt in 

 establishing an official survey, but the liberality of Van Rensse 

 laer and the energy of Eaton gave to New York the honor of 

 attaching the names of its towns and counties to a large num 

 ber of the geological formations of North America. 



In these early surveys Eaton was associated with Dr. Theo 

 dore Romeyn Beck and Mr. H. Webster, naturalist and collec 

 tor, one of the first being a survey of the county of Albany, un 

 der the special direction of a County Agricultural Society, fol 

 lowed by similar surveys of Rensselaer county and Saratoga 

 county and others along the Erie Canal. 



In July, 1818, Professor Silliman began the publication of the 

 American Journal of Science, which has been for more than 

 two-thirds of a century the most prominent register of the scien- 



* Index to the Geology of the Northern States. 2d ed. 1820. p. viii. 



