172 INTRODUCTION. 



of Stephen Van Rensselaer and William Caldwell, has acquired a library which 

 contains almost every important work in the department of natural science. 

 From the period when the geological survey commenced, the progress of mine- 

 raloo-y has been identified with that of geology, and the present condition of that 

 science will appear in that portion of the following work devoted to the subject. 

 The history of geology in this country commences with the year 1807. Wil- 

 liam McClure, a native of Scotland, who had emigrated to the United States, 

 revisited Europe in 1803. Imbued with a love for the study of natural history, 

 and possessing ample fortune, he traversed large portions of Europe, acquiring 

 geological knowledge. Prepared by these researches, he undertook, on his 

 return to this country in 1807, at a time when scientific pursuits were little ap- 

 preciated, to accomplish by his own enterprise a geological survey of the United 

 States. His observations were made in almost every state and territory in the 

 union ; and not only in populous districts, where the comforts which the traveller 

 requires were afforded, but also in forests and dreary solitudes, unaffected by 

 all the privations to which he was exposed. The unlettered inhabitants of 

 remote districts, seeing him engaged in breaking fragments from rocks, sup- 

 posed him to be a lunatic escaped from confinement. The facts which he 

 accumulated, were communicated to the American Philosophical Society, and 

 published in their " Transactions" in 1809. The author continued his investi- 

 gations during a series of many years. But in pursuing his valuable discoveries, 

 he, like his successors, was influenced not so much by a desire to obtain a correct 

 classification of our strata, as to identify them with those of the eastern conti- 

 nent. The publication of Mr. McClure called into the field a few laborers, and 

 engaged the attention of friends of science. De Witt Clinton,' in his Introduc- 

 tory Discourse, delivered in 1814 before the " Literary and Philosophical Society 

 of New- York," censured the legislature for having refused, at a recent session, 

 to lend its aid to the prosecution of searches for coal within this state ; and in 

 considering the objects worthy the attention of that association, he remarked that 

 "Men of observation and science ought to be employed to explore our country, 



