1864.] REVIEW. 67 



it as a useless expenditure of the public money. Persons not 

 interested in science or in practical mining might heretofore have 

 been excused for not having read the annual reports of progress, 

 with their dry details and want of suitable illustrations ; but after 

 the publication of this attractive volume, such want of knowledge 

 can no longer be tolerated ; and it is to be hoped that no public 

 speaker or writer will venture so to proclaim his own ignorance as 

 to pretend that Canadian Geology is one of those little matters 

 which have, in the midst of more important affairs, escaped his 

 attention, or to underrate the labors of those who have devoted 

 themselves to this great work. 



We do not propose to give any summary of the Report, or to give 

 extracts from it. It should be in the hands of every reading man 

 in Canada ; and as a further inducement to this, we close with 

 the following extracts from the Preface, in relation to the arrange- 

 ment of the Museum of the Survey, which is one of its most cred- 

 itable and useful achievements : 



" One of the duties imposed by the Government upon the Sur- 

 vey, at the time of its institution, was the formation of a Provin- 

 cial Museum, which should illustrate the geology and the mineral 

 resources of the country. This object has been constantly kept in 

 view ; and since a suitable building has been placed at the disposal 

 of the Survey, the Museum has gradually assumed a value and 

 importance which at the present time ren'^er it second to few on 

 the continent for the special purpose to which it is devoted. The 

 Museum is separated into two parts. One of these is devoted to 

 Economic Geology, and in it are displayed specimens of such 

 rocks and mineral substances as can be applied to the useful 

 purposes of life. These are subdivided into two classes; one 

 of them containing the more important metals and their ores, and 

 the other what may be termed the non-metalliferous mineral sub- 

 stances. These various materials are again classified technically, 

 pretty much in the way in which they are described in the twenty- 

 first chapter of this volume; each specimen being placed under a 

 label giving its locality, and the geological formation to which it 

 belongs. The various substances are as much as possible reduced 

 to forms showing their uses, thus at once making the design of the 

 arrangement intelligible. In this division of the Museum there 

 is a classified collection of all our mineral species; and another of 

 our rocks, more particularly those of a metamoiphic or of an intru- 



