148 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



In 1832, upon a resolution of the legislature of Maryland in behalf 

 of a new map of the state, he was appointed in conjunction with J. H. 

 Alexander, Esq., to make the necessary preliminary reconnoissance of 

 the subject and the territory. The report of these gentlemen was re- 

 published in this Journal, 1st Series, vol. xxvii, p. 1, seqq. Progress 

 was made in this survey ; though it was unfortunately hampered by 

 a spirit of well meant but injudicious economy. Prof, Ducatel pursued 

 his researches as geologist (without assistants however) until 1841, 

 when the embarrassments of the state treasury were held to be suffi- 

 cient reason for suspending any farther appropriation. 



This step, however justified by policy in other regards, was in so far 

 unhappy that it deprived the state of results which were upon the point 

 of attainment and the individual of the opportunity of generalizing 

 and assembling the fruits of several years' observation into a shape 

 worthy of science and of himself: for the annual reports, as they 

 themselves testify, were in no wise looked upon by their writer as com- 

 pleting his task for the particular districts of whose examination they 

 respectively treated. They were but popular announcements of par- 

 ticulars of interest especially to the denizens of the respective localities ; 

 and regard seems to have been paid in their very style to the exclu- 

 sion of technicalities whose introduction among the multitude of topics, 

 though it would have thrown over them a scientific garb, would have 

 defeated the proper industrial aim of the report. Yet as they are, they 

 serve to characterize the cautious yet profound spirit of investigation 

 in their author: facts are simply and unpretendingly stated ; and the 

 inferences from them when necessary to be drawn are given without 

 any of that theoretical dogmatism which is sometimes met with and 

 which is so much calculated to mislead the reader and ultimately dis- 

 credit the writer. It is to be hoped that ere long some one will un- 

 dertake the subject afresh and, bringing up Maryland abreast with 

 Virginia and New Jersey, again enable that state to be among the 

 foremost in the practical applications of geology for which the chemi- 

 cal discoveries and advances in the last seven years have given so 

 much wider scope than was possible in 1833. 



During these engagements, Ducatel was also appointed to the Chair of 

 Chemistry, Mineralogy and Geology in St. John's College, Annapolis; 

 a post which in 1838 or 1839 he resigned, as well as his Chair in the 

 University, in order to devote himself more exclusively to his geolog- 

 ical examinations. Such devotion although for the best interest of that 

 work, was perhaps not so well for the interest of the individual ; since 

 it was the resignation of an etat in behalf of a temporary employ- 

 ment, and in fact so it proved when a few years afterwards the ge- 

 ological survey was stopped unfinished, and the Professor found him- 

 self looking for employment instead of employment unsought press- 

 ing itself upon him. If details of this kind are mentioned here, it is 

 with the view of warning others in similar circumstances, — not of 

 course to encourage a selfish disregard of public duties which they may 

 have assumed, but against any implicit and possibly inconvenient re- 

 liance upon the measures and consideration of governments which are 

 proverbially ungrateful 



