266 BULLETIN 109, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



survey of the State." In presenting this report the chairman in- 

 veighed fiercely against the insolence exhibited in the report, above 

 alluded to, and the attempt to " coerce the legislature by forestalling 

 public opinion." The report to abolish would undoubtedly have 

 been promptly adopted but for Hilgard's forcing a personal confer- 

 ence with the chairman, in which he presented to him the documents 

 in the case and exhorted him to abolish the geologist, if he thought 

 there was cause, but not the survey, the revival of which would be 

 only a question of time. After this the " bill to abolish " was no. 

 called up, and the survey remained in without change during 1859. 



The previous season's work having settled conclusively the suc- 

 cession of the several stages of the Tertiary and their prominent 

 stratigraphical, lithological, and paleontological features, he de 

 voted the season of 1859 to the filling in of details. He went miore 

 leisurely over the ground intended to liaA^^e been covered by the pre- 

 vious joint expedition with Harper in 1855 — namely, from the 

 southern border of the Cretaceous area, near Columbus, down the 

 Chickasawhay and Pascagoula valleys to the seacoast; along the 

 coast to Pearl Eiver, up that river to Columbia, Marion County, 

 and thence across to the Mississippi; thence northward along the 

 eastern border of the loess region to the belt marine Tertiaries, which 

 he also examined more in detail between Jackson and Vicksburg. 

 All these observations only served to largely confirm and complete 

 his previous conclusions. 



Returning from the field somewhat earlier than usual, Hilgard 

 began the arrangement of materials for a report, to be presented at 

 the legislative session of 1859-60, with a view to its publication and 

 the procurement of a better endowment for the survey. 



As an example of the work done by the survey he put up a col- 

 lection of soils and marls, gathered during the three years' work, and 

 had it on exhibition at the State fair held at Jackson in November. 

 It excited a good deal of attention and newspaper comment, and 

 gave a favorable turn to public opinion previously aroused by fre- 

 quent communications of results made to agricultural and other 

 papers of the State. 



Outside of the fair work he carried on the work of analysis and 

 writing, simultaneously and unremittingly, assisted by Prof. W. D. 

 More, then holding the chair of English literature at the University 

 of Mississippi. The manuscript was not nearly completed when the 

 legislature convened in December, 1859, but there was enough to 

 satisfy a special committee that it should be printed and that the 

 working facilities should be enlarged. 



The bill reported by that committee and afterwards passed with 

 little difficulty by the legislature made no radical changes in the 



