No. 109. J 23 



thirty years will be occapicd in the work. Could not the distin- 

 guished New- York statesman, who was to have addressed us to- 

 day, be induced, when the present great struggle in which he is 

 engaged shall have been brought to a close by a merciful Provi- 

 dence, to introduce this subject and urge it upon Congress? And 

 would it not be appropriate for the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science to throw a petition before the Government 

 for such an object 1 Or might it not, with the consent of the emi- 

 nent gentleman who has charge of the Coast Survey, be connected 

 therewith, as it is with the Ordnance Survey in Great Britain? 



But to return from this digression, another important result of 

 the New -York Survey was the origination of the Association of 

 American Geologists, which has gradually expanded into the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Many of 

 us, who were engaged in the State surveys, were so isolated from 

 one another, that we had few means of comparing views, or ob- 

 taining advice in our conclusions. Professor Mather, I believe, 

 through Professor Emmons, first suggested thesubject of a meeting 

 to the Board of Geologists in November 1838, in a letter proposing 

 several points for their consideration. I quote from that letter the 

 following paragraph relating to the meeting. As to the credit he 

 has here given me of having previously suggested the subject, I 

 can say only that I had been in the habit for several years of 

 making this meeting of scientific men a sort of hobby, in my 

 correspondence with such. Whether otiiers d^ the same, 1 did not 

 then, and do not now, know^ Were this the proper place, I could 

 go more into details on this point ; but I will merely quote Prof. 

 Mather's language to the Board*. 



* As this is a matter of some historical interest, it may not be arrogant or im- 

 proper for me to add in a note, that In 1849 Prof. Mather addressed a letter to me 

 (dated Jackson, Ohio. Sept. G), on this subject, A few extracts lollow, 



"PROF. HITCHCOCK : 

 " Dear Sir — I received a few days since the Proceedings of the Am. Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, 1st meeting, held in Philadelphia, Sept. 1848; and 

 in it, page 91, I found a letter from Prof. Hall, and observed with some surprise 

 the latter part of the sentence of the second paragraph ( relating to Prof. Van- 

 oxem), viz : 'and to whom is due, above all others, the honor of being the first 

 man to propose such an organization.' Now I do not wish to detract at all from the 

 merit due to Prof. Yakdxem; and perhaps Prof. Hall made the representation 



