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390 Miscellanies. 
and it is all around full of coal. There is also at the east, a gallery | 
a few yards from the bottom, to the extent of forty or fifty yards, all 
surrounded with coal, so that they see nothing else on all sides.’ ” 
5. Encouragement for the Fine Arts.—George Combe, Esq. under 
date of March 16, 1841, writes to the senior editor of this Journal : 
“T am glad to hear that Mr. Ives (sculptor and modeller in stat- . 
uary) has obtained so much patronage among you. It appeared to me 
that there is no lack of genius for art in the United States; all that is 
needed is encouragement. Scotland was too poor to encourage artists 
by buying their works, until we formed an association, to which any 
one who chooses subscribes five dollars; we buy pictures with the 
furids, (last year they amounted to £3,000,) and draw lots for them. 
The annual exhibition has recently opened, and it is very creditable to 
the country. The improvement in art, within my recollection, is very 
great, and the public taste is improving in proportion. Such a scheme 
is what your country wants.” 
We hope that the valuable suggestion of Mr, Combe may be favora- 
bly regarded, both in the revival of institutions already existing for the 
improvement of the arts, and in the creation of new and effective asso- 
ciations. 
Twelve months have passed since the above remarks were written, 
and they have lain among our unpublished miscellanies until we can 
have it in our power to confirm their justness and. propriety. 
6. Geological Survey of Lowisiana.—We are happy to learn from 
Prof. Wm. M. Carpenter, of Jackson College, Louisiana, that he has 
for some time past been engaged in making, by direction of the legis- 
lature, a geological examination preliminary to a complete survey of 
that state. Prof. Carpenter is well known to the readers of this Jour- 
nal by various interesting geological papers in our previous volumes, 
and we rejoice that the legislature of Louisiana have had the wisdom 
to select, from her own sons, one so able to answer their liberal views. 
From Prof. Carpenter’s letter we extract the following. 
~ Notice of an interesting Fossil_—The sketch represents the crown 
of a molar tooth, which was taken from a jaw bone found at the ie 
of forty five feet below the surface, in digging a 
well in a prairie iyenty or thirty miles from the 
and as the distoweadag! saw aed remarkable: ad 
the jaw except the circumstan t such a depth ediant 
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