ORIGIN OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOLOGISTS. 17 



and views of our colleagues and co-workers in these States. In furtherance 

 of our plans, Mr. Vanuxem entered into correspondence with Prof. Henry 

 D. Rogers, of Pennsylvania, and with Prof. Edward Hitchcock, of Massa- 

 chusetts, with a view to forming an association of such American geologists 

 as were then engaged in State geological surveys. This was the first and 

 main object, although at the first meeting persons other than those engaged 

 in geological surveys came into the Association. 



This movement was the origin of the Association of American Geologists, 

 organized, in 1840, for the purpose of discussing geological questions ami 

 coming to some harmonious views in regard to the relations of the geologi- 

 cal formations we were then investigating, and thereby reaching some system 

 of nomenclature upon which we could all agree, and through which we 

 might bring the knowledge acquired before the public with some unity of 

 purpose and expression. These were simply the objects we then had in 

 view. Our meeting in Philadelphia, in April, 1840, resulted in a good deal 

 of discussion which reached no result. That meeting however prepared the 

 way for further work and further discussion upon the important questions 

 before us. No conclusions were reached regarding uniformity of nomen- 

 clature ; though some other questions of importance regarding the sequence 

 and extent of certain rock formations were settled by the end of the third 

 meeting, while others remained, and still remain, undetermined. In the 

 mean time the State geologists in New York were required by law to pub- 

 lish their reports, and since no agreement had been reached with their 

 neighbors they continued, for the most part, the use of the local names pro- 

 posed in the annual reports. The Pennsylvania reports published at a 

 later date adopted a different nomenclature. While, therefore, our original 

 purpose was not fully accomplished, much good resulted from personal inter- 

 course aud our earnest discussions of the then unsettled questions which 

 came before us. 



At the end of three years (as I now recollect) the naturalists of the counl ry 

 desired to join with the association of geologists for similar purposes and 

 for bringing before their colaborers and the public in the same manner the 

 results of their investigations and for inviting discussion upon unsettled ques- 

 tions. The organization then became the Association of American Geo- 

 logists and Naturalists, and retained that title till 1848. Afterwards the 

 chemists and physicists, who had held aloof from the beginning, were willing 

 to join with us, and the American Association of Geologists and Naturalists 

 became the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This 

 is simply the history of events without detail ; and now after a career of forty- 

 nine years, when the number of geologists has increased more than fifty-fold, 

 we find that the time afforded for the discussion of important geological 

 topics is quite inadequate, and it has become necessary that some other means 



III— Bull. Gkol. Soc. Am., Vol. 1, 1889. 



