Association of American Greologists and Naturalists. 235 
that now its dominion although not yet perfected is fully estab- 
lished. 
In proof of this position, however, it is not possible to give 
any thing more than an outline of our earlier efforts for the pro- 
motion of geology, and we shall have little time to glance at 
the agency of individuals in the field within the later years, in 
which geology has flourished with vigor. During the last fif- 
teen or twenty years, many of the local governments of the 
individual states have caused to be instituted geological surveys 
of their respective territories—all of them appropriating public 
money, and many of them with laudable liberality, to the great 
object in view. 
Geological surveys have been ordered and are now in progress 
or are already accomplished in more than three fourths, and if 
we include reconnaissances, in four fifths of our states and terri- 
tories. - We trust that with the return of a more prosperous state 
of afigirs, the rest will follow. The general government has 
caused geological reconnaissances to be made in the territories” 
which are still unappropriated, as state domains, and the explor- 
ing naval expedition, charged with the collection of specimens in 
‘geology and mineralogy, as well as in other departments of natu- 
ral history, has already sent to the city of Washington a valuable 
harvest of these objects, to be deposited in the museum of the 
National Institute. State collections, illustrating the geology and 
mineralogy, and in some instances the zoology and botany of thei 
respective territories, are also formed and forming in the different 
local capitals. Whenever the general government shall perform 
its duty, by carrying into effect the Smithsonian bequest, (thus 
imitating the promptness and fidelity exhibited in Boston in a 
case quite parallel—that of the Lowell fund,) then we may hope 
to have established at Washington in the manner of the school of 
mines at Paris, a grand national collection, which shall present in 
@ connected and yet independent view, a faithful representation 
of the geology of our continent. Our neighbors in Nova Scotia, 
New Brunswick and Canada, have been for some years and still 
are actively engaged in exploring those important countries, in 
Some parts of which are found great treasures of coal, grit-sand- 
stone,* iron ore and plaster of Paris. . 
_* Grindstones of excellent quality. 
