19 



Many of the ores, metals and other minerals enumerated in 

 this report have been carefully " assayed " or resolved into their 

 constituent parts, and the results of such analysis carefully noted 

 and preserved. It may be necessary, however, in view of their 

 vast importance and utility to supply such deficiencies as may be 

 found to exist, that the chemical analysis of each valuable metal 

 or mineral may be presented, in a properly arranged descriptive 

 table made convenient for the use and reference of those interested 

 in such important items of intelligence. 



While, for reasons heretofore given, the analyses of soils may 

 not be practicable, and are of very doubtful general utility, there 

 can be no limit to the importance of an analysis of the ores, metals 

 and other minerals which constitute so great an element in the 

 wealth of the State. In fact its utility can hardly be ex- 

 aggerated. 



While impressed with the importance of a complete develop- 

 ment of all departments of the Natural History of the State 

 which savor of practical utility, and aware of and duly appre- 

 ciating the natural and laudable wants and wishes of the people 

 of Vermont in this particular, I am by no means insensible to the 

 manifold attractions which our State presents to the scientific or 

 theoretical enquirer. While the geological surveys of New Hamp- 

 shire by Professor Charles T. Jackson, of Massachusetts by 

 President Edward Hitchcock, of New York by William W. Ma- 

 ther, Dr. Ebenezer Emmons, Prof. Gardner Vanuxem and Prof- 

 James Hall, and of the Province of Canada by Sir William Ed- 

 mond Logan, have greatly tended to develope their mineral and 

 natural resources, it cannot be expected that Vermont will be 

 backward in ascertaining the extent and variety of her internal 

 resources. The enlightened policy which gave origin to the ex- 

 isting law providing for a completion of the Geological Survey 

 will undoubtedly bear the Survey onward to its proper consumma- 

 tion. Although the science of Geology is yet in its infancy, and 

 the theories of to-day may give place to the more plausible theo- 

 ries of to-morrow, yet whatever of permanent scientific interest 

 attaches to the Geological Survey of Vermont ought to be re- 

 corded and presented to the world so soon as the Survey is com- 

 pleted and the entire field has been thoroughly explored. 



The objects of scientific interest in the Natural History of Ver- 



