No. 17] FOURTH BIENNIAL REPORT 23 



investigation; but a vast amount of careful work must be done 

 before we can reach the true history of the Quaternary era in our 



territory. 



A class of geological papers which would be of great educa- 

 tional value would be a series of geological guide-books to various 

 regions of the state. In these guide-books directions sufficiently 

 detailed to be practical should be given for excursions to localities 

 where the most characteristic and instructive geological phenom- 

 ena could be seen. Professor James D. Dana prepared years 

 ago a book fitted to serve this purpose for the vicinity of New 

 Haven; but even for that region there is need of a guide-book 

 brought down to date, as regards both the scientific interpretation 

 of phenomena and the arrangement of the itinerary. A series of 

 such books for various districts of the state would make the 

 study of geology in the high schools more real and genuine than 

 it can otherwise be. 



A report on the mineralogy of our state would be very useful. 

 Lists of American localities of minerals have been published in 

 a number of editions of the works of J. D. and E. S. Dana on 

 mineralogy, the latest being in the sixth edition of the System of 

 Mineralogy, published in 1892. A list of Connecticut minerals 

 by Hattie E. Cochrane, dated 1894, is contained in the Report of 

 the State Board of Education for 1896. Neither of these lists 

 is by any means complete. Moreover, a report of the mineralogy 

 of the state should be much more than a mere list of minerals 

 occurring in the respective towns. Such a report should give 

 more detailed information in regard to localities of interesting 

 and important minerals, and should enter into some discussion of 

 the geological relations of the minerals. 



In the introductory chapter of the Manual of Connecticut 

 Geology is found a brief discussion of the physical geography of 

 the state in relation to geological structure. A subject whose 

 treatment in a bulletin or in a series of bulletins would be of 

 great educational value, would be the physical geography of 

 various parts of the state, particularly in relation to human life 

 and history. In such publications the influence of geographic 

 conditions in the location of towns, in the determination of 

 routes of travel, and in the control of the industries of the state, 

 should be discussed. Such bulletin or bulletins on the physical 



