3S0 Miscellanies, 



r 



out by the State for its own honor and advantage and as an important 

 aid to the cause of science. ^ 



2. Survey of Virginia, 1836, '37, '38. 



3. Survey of Pennsyhmnia^ 1839. 



We have in Vol, xxxu, p. 192, mentioned with decided approbation 

 the preliminary survey of Virginia, by Prof. Wm. B. Rogers. The pre- 

 liminary report published by him on that occasion gave equally an earnest 

 of the importance of the undertaking and of the talent and zeal with 

 which it would be prosecuted. 



We have mentioned (Id.) in similar terms the labors of his brother 

 Prof Henry D. Rogers in Pennsylvania; and the present notice will have 

 reference to both the above, because the states are contiguous and have 



many geological features in common, and because also a similar mode of 



investigation has been pursued by these gentlemen. 



Their reports are abstracts giving a brief sketch of their plan of re- 

 search and of the progress in their plan of investigation during each 

 son. They have great similarity in their mode of grouping the formations 

 of the Appalachian and Allegany regions ; wc are indeed assured that 

 they work in concert, and coinciding in their geological views, they have 

 adopted the same method. Their cautious and laborious mode of re- 

 search is likely to insure the approbation of all sound and judicious geol- 

 ogists, and when the entire body of their results with a multitude of 

 illustrative sections and other delineations shall be made public, it does 

 not admit of a doubt that the course of strict induction which they are 

 pursuing will be fully approved. 



The phenomena of structure, the illustration of the directions, and 

 comparative energies of geological powers, are among the most important 

 results of geological research. The wide scale of the formations which 

 they are investigating and the apparently symmetrical operation of the 

 great disturbing forces to which they have been exposed, will afford them 

 the opportunity of elucidating perhaps more clearly than it can have been 

 done elsewhere many important general views not always without nov- 

 elty. 



Such we presume are the general views of these gentlemen, although 

 in their annual reports they are merely glanced at, but will have their full 

 development in the end. We contemplate also with satisfaction the coin- 

 cidence of similar labors in the State of New York whose formations are 

 but the e.xtension of some of the most important of those of Pennsylva- 

 nia and Virginia. Able geologists are there in the field and we have 

 already presented an earnest of the result of their examination although 

 it is not now in our power to survey their most recent labors. 



In relation to Virginia and Pennsylvania it is not our purpose to enu- 

 merate even the most important facts which the reports present. We 

 cannot however omit the mention of a few. 



