274 BULLETIN 109, UNITED STATES i^ATIONAL. MUSEUM. 



Dr. l>uvicl D. Owen was, atuoug the older American geologists, the one who 

 most steadily kept the agricultural interests in view and gave them prominence 

 in his researches and reports; and while my personal intercourse with him 

 predisposed me to follow his exami)le in this respect, my further exi)erience has 

 only served to strengthen my conviction that a reasonable proportion of atten- 

 tion given to agricultural work would effectually smooth the path of our public 

 surveys, whose fate is forever trembling in the balance at each reassembling 

 of the legislative bodies upon wliich their continued endowment depends and 

 by whose country members their utility is constantly called in question. No 

 such question was raised in Mississippi after the publication of my report for 

 1S60, and legislative appropriations for substantially similar work done by 

 me on behalf of agriculture have since been liberally maintained in California, 

 despite the conspicious disfavor with which the geological survey of that State 

 has for 12 j-ears past been regarded by the public. Had that survey been adapted 

 to the legitimate needs of the State, by proper diligence in the pursuit of its 

 agricultural side, the discontinuance of the work would never have been carried 

 through the legislature. 



As a striking exemplificntiou of the change wrought in public sentiment by 

 the energetic prosecution of agricultural survey work, I may quote the action 

 taken at the called session of the Legislature of Jlississippi in August, 1861. 

 Under the terrible stress brought to bear on the State even then by the impend- 

 ing conflict, it would have been natural to expect the complete extinction of the 

 appropriation for the survey work. Instead of this, an act was passed sus- 

 pending the appropriation for the geological survey " until the close of the war 

 and for 12 mouths thereafter; except the sum of $1,250 per annum, which shall 

 be applied to the payment of the salary of the State geologist, and the purchase 

 of such chemicals as may be necessary to carry on the analysis of soils, minerals, 

 and mineral waters and to enable him to preserve the apparatus, analyses, 

 and other property of the State connected with said survey." 



This appropriation was actually maintained during the entire struggle of the 

 Confederacy, and, so far as the vicissitudes of war permitted, the chemical 

 work (and even some field work) was continued by me during the same time. 

 The scarcity of salt suggested the utilzation of some of the saline waters and 

 eflJorescences so common in the southern part of the State, and some 40 (un- 

 published) analyses of such saline mixtures are on record. I made an official 

 report on the subject to Governor Pettus, dated June 9, 1SG2. I also made a 

 special exploration on the several limestone caves of the State with a view 

 to the discovery of nitrotis earths; but from the fact that these caves are all 

 traversed by lively streams. I found nowhere a sufficient accumulation of ni- 

 trates to render exploitation useful. 



MISSOURI.^ 



riRST SURVEY UNDER GEORGE C. SWALLOW, 1853-1862. 



Organization. — About the earliest record available of official ac- 

 tion on the part of the State of Missouri in the direction of a geo- 

 logical survey is given in the message of Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs to 

 the tenth general assembly, in 1833. In this he recommended an 



> See also Geological Survey of Missouri, Journal of Geology, vol. 2, 1894, pp. 207-221, 

 Biid Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci., vol. 4, 1878-86, pp. 611-624. 



