866 BULLETIN 109, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



the duty of the board of agriculture of North Carolina to employ some person 

 of competent skill and science, to commence and carry on a geological and 

 mineralogical survey of the various regions of this State; and that the person 

 or persons so employed shall, at stated periods, furnish to the board true and 

 correct accounts of the results of said surveys and invest'gations, which shall 

 annually be published by the board aforesaid, for the benefit of the public, as 

 provided by the sixth section of the act of the last general assembly, entitled 

 "An act to promote agriculture and family domestic manufactures within this 

 State." 



II. And be it further eiinvtcd, That for the purpose of carrying the intention 

 of the foregoing section into effect, a sum not exceeding $250 be, and the same 

 is hereby, annually appropriated for four successive years, out of the unex- 

 pended balance of the agricultural fund, as created and set apart by the above 

 recited act: and that the treasurer of the State is hereby directed to pay the 

 same to the order of the board of agriculture of Norh Carolina. 



The above law stood without change throughout the whole period 

 of the existence of the survey. 



Connection with other institutions. — The survey, if such it can be 

 called, had no immediate connection with any other institution than 

 the board of agriculture, though both Olmsted and Mitchell held 

 professorships in the State university, and the collections made be- 

 came the property of the university. 



Admhiistration. — Professor Olmsted was appointed by the board 

 to conduct the survey and prosecuted the work during portions of 

 the years 1824 and 1825. At the end of that time he resigned, both 

 his position on the survey and his professorship in the university, 

 and Prof. Elisha Mitchell, then professor of mathematics in the 

 university, was appointed to fill the positions thus left vacant. Pro- 

 fessor Mitchell appears to have continued the work during his college 

 vacations of the years 1826, 1827, and 1828, at the end of which time 

 the work was permanentl}^ discontinued. 



The personnel of the survey was as follows : 1824 and 1825, Denison 

 Olmsted, geologist; Charles E. Rothe, assistant geologist; 1825-1828, 

 Elisha Mitchell,* geologist. 



During a part of the year 1825 Professor Olmsted employed, with 

 the approbation of the president of the board of agriculture, Charles 

 E. Rothe (a miner and mineralogist recently from Saxony) to visit 

 the counties of Person, Mecklenburg, and Anson in this State and 

 examine the slate formations on the lines of Virginia and South 

 Carolina.^ 



» In a communication published in the American Journal of Science (vol. 16, No. 1, 

 1S29) Professor Mitchell writes that for three years, besinniug with the latter part of 

 1825, Prof. E. A. Andrews (at that time professor of !anaruas:os in the University of 

 North Carolina, and afterwards well known as a cramiuariaii and loxicosrapher) was 

 associated alons? with himself in an examinnlion into the Reoloji.v of the State; but no 

 mention has been found of Professor .\ndrows having been directly connected with the 

 woi-k of the survey. He may, however, have assisted Professor Mitchell in that work. 



' Olmsted, Report on the Geology of North Carolina, part 2, 1825, pp. 105 and 106. 



