GEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SURVEYS. 527 



Albany, January SO, /8fi8. 

 Chas. Knickerbocker, Sccii. etc. 



Deab Sir: Your favor of the 17th was received by me ou luy return froni 

 Washington this week. The story of the Wisconsin survey is soon told. I went 

 into it by request of the governor and legislature :md under a contract provided 

 for in the law. After the first volume w^as published and a part of the copies 

 delivered in Madison, the second volume in progress and some engraving done, 

 the legislature, in a fit of spleen, repealed the law. The i)rincipal cause of this 

 was, I have no doubt, because we did not recommend deep mining in the lead 

 region. 



By this act of the legislature I was left about $2,500 out of pocket ; that is, 

 my salary for one year and .$500 paid for engraving, etc. I have made overtures 

 tor some settlement of my claim, but have not succeeded. I have the ma- 

 terials — that is, manuscript, some lithographed plates, etc. — and have within the 

 last few yeai-s had other plates lithographed. I have now about 22 plates avail- 

 able for this work, and 20 more would make a fair completion of the volume. 

 None of these have been paid for by Wisconsin, and of course will have to be 

 considered in any arrangement to be made. 



The manuscript is, of course, my own, the State having paid for nothing. I 

 likewise hold some boxes of specimens which I collected while engaged in the 

 work, and these would go to the State on completion and payment of the work. 



You can judge for yourself of the temper and disposition of the legislature, 

 and whether you could secure the appropriation necessary to i)ay for the work. 



J presume that Professor Carr, of the university, can give you some informa- 

 tion, and perhiips the president of the universit.v may be Interested to have it 

 completed. 



If you conclude to do anything and will let me know how 1 can help the mat- 

 ter I will do so cheerfully. 



I am, very truly yours, 



(Signed) James Ham.. 



Nothing .satis factorj^ seems to have been the outcome of all at- 

 tempts until 1873. Frao;mentary correspondence which has passed 

 nndcr the writer's eye indicates that Whittlesey had kept up a spas- 

 modic and not very amicable correspondence on survey matters and 

 that the latter had aspirations, not realized, of himself sometime be- 

 • oming State geologist. 



THIRD SURVEY UNDER LAPHAM-WIGHT-CHAMBEKLTN, 18 73-18 79. 



The third attempt at a geological .survey of Wisconsin was made 

 \i.ndor the following authorization, approved March 19. 1873: 



.An act to provide for a complete geological survey of Wisconsin. 



The people of the State of Wisconain, represented in senate and assembly, do 

 rnaet as follows: 



Section 1. The governor is hereby required to appoint, by and with the advice 

 : nd consent of the senate, a chief geologist, who shall be a person of known 

 integrity, thorough practical and scientific knowledge of the sciences of geology 

 ;ind mineralogy, and, upon recommendation of said chief geologist, the governor 



136075—20 .35 



