GEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SURVEYS. 259 



hereby authorized to make the necessary arrangements, if the same has not 

 already been made, for suitable acconmiodations for his collections and labora- 

 tory in that place; and that all laws in conflict with the provisions of this act 

 be, and the same are hereby, repealed. 

 Approved February 10, ISGO. 



Administration. — Under the somewhat loose provisions and phrase- 

 ology of the act of 1850 Dr. John Millington, at the time professor 

 of chemistry at the University of Mississippi, was in June of that year 

 appointed to the position of State geologist and additional duties pro- 

 vided for b}' it. No assistant was obtained until Jul}'' 15, 1851, when 

 Oscar M. Lieber, of South Carolina, was appointed to the position. 

 No record or report of Lieber's M-ork was made. During a portion of 

 his incumbency (presumably in the autumn of 1852) he made, on 

 horseback, a reconnoissancc of the Yazoo Bottom, but nothing beyond 

 that fact apjicars from the letters written by him under the regulation 

 defining his duties, which provides that : 



When not actually engaged in making explorations and surveys, he shall aid 

 the principal professor of geology, agriculture, and chemistry, in the discharge 

 of his duties; and while engaged in making such surveys, he shall make reports 

 at least monthly to the principal professor; and the salary of said assistant 

 professor shall be $1,000 per annum. 



Lieber resigned on January 14, 1852. 



In January, 1852, the position of geologist was accepted by Prof. 

 B. L. C. Wailes, then of the faculty of Jefferson College, near Natchez. 

 This gentleman had already made a collection of rocks and fossils of 

 the southwestern part of the State and had an extended knowledge of 

 the general features of that region. 



It will be noted that, by the verbal correction made in the first sec- 

 tion of the act of 1852, the survey was practically made a complete 

 natural history survey, since the only branch not specifically provided 

 for (botany) might be understood to be necessarily included in the 

 provision for an agricultural survey. The State society mentioned 

 had but a very ephemeral existence during the two succeeding years, 

 namely, 1852 and 1853. Mr. Wailes traveled chiefly in the southern 

 and eastern part of the State, with his own team and outfit, examining 

 the territory of the Cretaceous in northeast Mississippi and the Ter- 

 tiary and Quaternary areas in the southern part of the State. 



Collections of Tertiary fossils, especially from the shell bed at 

 Jackson, were sent by Wailes to Conrad, and mammalian and other 

 bones from the loess to Leidy, for determination and description; and 

 collections of these and other fossils as well as of rocks were by him 

 deposited both at Oxford and at Jackson. 



In January, 1854, Wailes presented to the board of trustees of 

 the University of Mississippi the manuscript of his report on the 



