GEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SURVEYS. 109 



distributed gratuitously by the members of the legislature, the cvfficers 

 of the survey, and other officials. This mode of distribution, plac- 

 ing these volumes of " public documents " generally in the hands of 

 persons who could not fully appreciate their value resulted in the 

 fact that at present these records are rarely obtainable by those who 

 wish to consult them. 



The cost of the publication was large. Doctor Owen wrote "that 

 the cost of volumes 2 and 3 was $7,529.19, of which $-t,GOO was 

 for binding alone";' and the cost of the other two volumes must 

 have been at least as great, so that out of the $55,000 appropriated 

 at least $30,000 must have been spent for publications. 



The only officer of tlie survey who derived compensation from any 

 other institution was Doctor Peter, who was also professor of chem- 

 istry in the medical depai'tment of Transylvania University, which 

 institution materially aided the survey, without any other com- 

 pensation than a collection of specimens derived therefrom, by 

 giving the free use of its ample chemical laboratory and apparatus 

 as well as that of its valuable scientific library.* The private libraries 

 and apparatus of Doctors Owen and Peter also aided in the economy 

 of the work. 



The geological survey had no library of its own. A valuable 

 museum of the geology, paleoritolog3% mineralogy, the soils, etc., of 

 Kentucky was established by Doctor Owen in a room in the capitol 

 at Frankfort, but this was destroyed by fire November, 1865.' 



In 1857 Doctor Owen accepted the position of State geologist of 

 Arkansas, to take effect as soon after October 1 as his engagements 

 in Kentucky would permit. He began operations in that State in 

 that month, but he also continued his general supervision and direc- 

 tion of the survey in Kentucky up to the time of his death. 



Benefits. — Doctor Owen, in the introduction to his First Report 

 of a Rcconnoissance of the Northern Counties of Arkansas, in 1858 

 (p. 13), giving "the results of the geological survey of Kentucky'' 

 up to that time, wrote : 



In some of the comities, where the labors of the geologist have estnblished 

 the existence of beds of good workable coal, the intrinsic value of the land rose, 

 in a single season, 25 per cent all over the county, while the value of the land 

 In many locations of the same county, offering peculiar advantages adjacent to 

 navigable streams, rose, in the course of the same period, from $.5 to $10 up 

 to ?.oO and ifGO per acre. And these prices have i-eni-iined up to the present 

 time, showing the valuation was real, intrinsic, and substantial 



* See Reports of GeoloRical Survey of Kentucky, vol. 4, p. 21. 



'Transylv.'iniii UniviTsity, with all its mrans of instruction, however, was Hnd yet re- 

 ojalns tlie property of tlie State, devoted to popular education, i)rimarily endowed by the 

 tnotlior State, Virginia, as a " puhiic scliool or seminary of learnintt." 



• Wifli the reoruanizatlon of tlie stirvey under Professor Sliaier a vei'y extensive and 

 valuable museum of the survey was established in ^he capitol. 



