42 



and the Great Exhibition in 1851." Although this " Journal " is 

 composed of notes for each day from May till August, jotted 

 down when travelling or sight-seeing, for the private eye of fam- 

 ily and friends and with no expectation that they would ever be 

 printed : yet they contain much that is new and valuable, and al- 

 though published as a " thank offering to his friends," yet the 

 reading public have perused it with equal pleasure and profit. 



Since the publication of his History of Vermont in 1842, rail- 

 roads and magnetic telegraphs have been introduced into the State 

 and other changes have taken place ; and early in 1853 Professor 

 Thompson published an appendix to the History, chiefly in the 

 department of the Natural History. This appendix, although, 

 containing only 64 pages, is a most valuable supplement to his 

 large work, and if his life had been spared a few years, as he says 

 in the Preface, he might have re-written the whole history. 



"We have now arrived in chronological order at his last work, up- 

 on which the Professor was engaged when the summons came for 

 him to join the majority and be " gathered to his fathers." It will 

 be remembered that the labors of Professor Adams and his as- 

 sistant had ceased in 1847 on behalf of the State. The cold 

 shoulder of " men most noted for wisdom arid virtue " was turned 

 toward them, after it was an established fact " that as much labor 

 was performed and as much investigation effected as were ever 

 accomplished with the same expenditure in any other State" 

 Prof. Adams' final report was never made, and January 19th 1853, 

 he died on the island of St. Thomas, W. I., cut down in the prime 

 of life and usefulness, when all that remained of the Geological 

 Survey of Vermont was shut up in short hand in the field-books 

 of the State Geologist, and those of his assistants or locked up in the 

 fifty boxes of unticketed and untrimmed specimens at Burlington 

 and Montpelier. Years after the field work was done and when 

 Prof. Adams was slumbering in his grave, the men " most noted for 

 wisdom and virtue," discovered that they had made a mistake in 

 arresting the progress of the survey. Then it was that Professor 

 Zadock Thompson was appointed by Statute, State Naturalist with 

 the following duties : " to enter upon a thorough prosecution and 

 completion of the Geological Survey of the State, embracing 

 therein full and scientific examination and description of its rocks, 

 soils, metals and minerals ; make careful and complete assays and 



