Feather stonhaugh s Geological Report. 13 



duce them, consistent with what is due to every consideration. 

 In one sense, however, these extensive excursions are highly 

 favorable to an object of great importance to the country, the 

 construction of a general geological map of the United States, 

 an undertaking which will probably require a great deal of 

 time to perfect. I have been able to collect materials for the 

 outline of such a map, which we should not have possessed 

 but for the particular nature of my duties and of the journeys 

 1 have made, and to supply many others from observations 

 made in passing through the interior of the country. The 

 exertions now making to produce geological information in 

 various States, will increase the number and value of these 

 materials. A geological map of the whole United States, 

 where all the formations would be exhibited on a large scale, 

 and the most important deposites of fuel, metals, and useful 

 minerals be accurately laid down, would be a monument both 

 useful and honorable to the country at home and abroad, and 

 I trust the day is not distant when Congress will direct such 

 a map to be constructed upon a scale commensurate with the 

 importance of the undertaking. I proceed now to the ele 

 mentary portion of the report of which I have spoken. 



Geology, in its most comprehensive sense, means the study 

 of nature and of all natural objects, whether those recent 

 ones belonging to the present order of nature, or those fossil 

 ones belonging to more remote periods, and which are sup 

 posed to have preceded the creation of man, because no 

 vestige of the existence of our race has been hitherto found 

 coeval with them. And as all the forms in nature present 

 themselves to us, either in organic or inorganic bodies, mean 

 ing bodies which have the faculty of continuing their kinds, 

 and those which have not, it results that geology stands in 

 relation with all the physical sciences, and that every geolo 

 gist ought to have some knowledge of mineralogy, zoology, 

 and botany, since the first comprehends all inorganic bodies, 

 and the last two all organic forms. In a more limited sense, 



