A NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY. 



which it is more important for us to know than it is to know 

 about those in our waters and in our forests. 



The practice of other States may be expected to throw 

 some light on this question. Our neighboring State of Ohio 

 has published, as part of its voluminous report of the Geolog- 

 ical Survey, a large volume on the zoology of the State, in 

 which the honored and lamented Chief of the Survey, Dr. J. 

 S. Newberry, takes occasion to speak at some length of the 

 educational and practical value of this part of the work; and 

 Iftdia^a, in tts Purvey by counties, has made large provision 

 for the study of the plant-life of the State, with the object, 

 amoilg other things, 'pf preserving, for future generations, a 

 permanent record of the flora as it now exists. 



New York State many years ago made appropriations for 

 the natural history side of its survey, and has continued this 

 liberal policy to the present time, and the recent reports of the 

 Geological Survey of New Jersey give large space to the 

 report of the botanist, while Pennsylvania has recently organ- 

 ized a comprehensive survey of its forest resources, and States 

 farther south have set an example which we may well con- 

 sider. The work of the Alabama Biological Survey comes to 

 us as an example, with the ripe fruits of the long and well- 

 directed activity of that rare scientific genius, Dr. Charles 

 Mohr, and with a corps of younger men eagerly pushing for- 

 ward into fields that still in Michigan wait our explorations. 

 Can it be that the atmosphere of the Gulf is more invigorating 

 to workers in science than that of the Lakes ? 



But in some of the newer States of the West we find a 

 still fuller realization of the broad views and more comprehen- 

 sive plans that, partly in the light of experience and partly as 

 the result of a growing conviction of the inter-dependence of 

 all organic science, have been embodied in the practical work- 

 ings of the State Surveys. In Minnesota the Survey was 

 organized as late as 1872. It was named and the name is 

 significant The Geological and Natural History Survey of 

 Minnesota, and was placed under the direction of the Board of 



