500 BULLETIN 10&, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



State geologist for a final report upon the geological survey be brought together 

 by some suitable persou, to be appointed by the governor, and be deposited in 

 tlie State house under the care of the State librarian, that nothing may be lost 

 and that the State may have the benefit of these collections whenever the Stata 

 shall deem it expedient to prosecute the survey to completion. 



Unfortunately, before action was taken on the matter of prepara- 

 tion of the final report mentioned, Professor Adams died/ 



In the December following the decease of Professor Adams was 

 passed the act given on pages 497-8, providing for the completion of 

 the survey. In this act, it v^ill be noted, botany and generaL zoology 

 were added to the items to be considered : that is, the survey was to 

 be a general natural history survey. Under this act Professor 

 Thompson was appointed State naturalist. 



It was Thompson's desire to carry out systematic investigations 

 and publish them to the world in the form of a physical geography 

 and natural history of the State, which should consist of three 

 volumes, the first devoted to geology, the second to botany, and the 

 third to zoology. It was found, however, that Adams's custom had 

 been to keep his notes in a very abbreviated form, quite incompre- 

 hensible to his successors, and Professor Thompson early announce*! 

 that more labor would be involved in deciphering them than in going 

 over the ground anew. Unfortunately, too. Professor Thompson 

 was himself cut off by death on January 19, 1856, and the second 

 attempt at a survey came to an end. 



Up to 1856, then, the entire results of the survey, as made public, 

 amounted to four annual reports by Professor Adams, consisting of 

 92, 267, 32, and 8 pages, respectively, and the report of Judge Young 

 of 88 pages. 



On February 27 following, Mr. Augustus Young was appointed 

 State naturalist to fill the vacancy until the next meeting of the 

 general assembly. Young, however, lived only to publish a report 

 of 88 pages, giving a history of the survey up to date, when he, too, 

 died, and the winter following " another heavy providential dis- 

 aster fell upon the work in the destruction by fire of the fine collec- 

 tions made by Professor Adams and others — a ruin so complete that 

 probably not 50 specimens remain fit to take a place in the new 

 cabinet." (Hitchcock.) 



Expenses. — The expenses under the Adams survey can not be given 

 with absolute accuracy, since the actual expenditures as given cover 

 for but seven months of each year, those for the remaining five 

 months being given in the form of estimates. 



Appropriations, 1845-1847, three years, at $2,000 a year $6,000.00 



' Professor Adams died on tbe Island of St. Thomas, West Indies, January 18, 18.5.'}. 



