18 



amount which, if at oiice appropriated, would finish the 

 work. The public does not appear to be prepared to re- 

 ceive favorably such a proposition, and under existing cir- 

 cumstances, it is perhaps best to adhere to the old plan, with 

 such modifications only as the interests of the State impe- 

 riously demands, and without which, no real and satisfactory 

 progress is attainable. The minimum is the provision for an 

 Assistant, and for the establishment of a suitable laboratory. 



In regard to the latter, it may perhaps be surprising to 

 those acquainted with the Legislative Acts concerning the 

 survey, that the $1,200 appropriated by the Legislature, in 

 1857, for laboratory purposes, should not have been sufficient 

 to accomplish that end as they undoubtedly would have 

 been, had they been judiciously managed. But the vouchers 

 filed in the Auditor's office, by the late State Geologist, as 

 well as the stock on hand (now deposited in one of the front 

 rooms of the Penitentiary,) show that scarcely more than 

 one-half of the sum appropriated has been applied to the 

 purchase of articles really useful or necessary for an analyti- 

 cal laboratory. The rest, (except $54 11 still remaining in 

 the Treasury,) has been expended in the purchase of promis- 

 cuous articles adapted to exhibition, amusement, and other 

 purposes foreign to the survey ; (among the larger items, I 

 may mention $212 50 for two microscopes, and $73 75 for 

 meteor oligical instruments.) And from among the articles 

 mentioned in the vouchers, and certified as having been re- 

 ceived by the late Geologist, a number, to the value of $110, 

 are nowhere to be found. Many articles of first necessity, 

 have on the other hand, been altogether omitted ; and the 

 appropriation has been exhausted to within a fraction, with- 

 out there being the least provision for the fitting up of a 

 room with bare walls, to make it answer the purposes of a 

 laboratory. 



$500 more will, at the lowest estimate, be required to put 

 the survey laboratory, in working order. A part of this 

 sum might, it is true, be derived from the sale of such of the 

 superfluous articles as may be saleable. But these can at 



