294 Miscellaneous Inteliigence. 
19. Dr. Owen’s Report on the Mineral Lands of the United Statess 
—This important document, which has been for six years sleeping in _ 
the archives of the Treasury Department at Washington, has at last 
been brought out with all its maps, plates of fossils, and picturesque 
views. The ground covered by this report contains about 11,000 square 
miles, and the results possess a high interest, both in a practical and — 
scientific point of view. The time in which this great labor was per- _ 
formed seems incredibly short, and the fact that the work was done, 
and well done, is sufficient proof, not only of Dr. Owen’s great energy; 7 
forethought and tact, but of his thorough fitness for the task, by pre- — 
viously acquired knowledge. He thus alludes to his labors: j 
~ After duly weighing the nature of my instructions, estirnating the — 
extent of country to be examined, considering the wild unsettled char- _ 
acter of a portion of it, and the scanty accommodations it could afford 
to a numerous party, (which rendered necessary a carefully-caleulated _ 
system of purveyance,) and ascertaining that the winter, in that north- 
ern region, commonly sets in with severity from the 10th to the middle 
of November, my first impression was, that the duty required of me 
was impracticable of completion within the given time, even with the 
liberal permission in regard to force accorded to me in my instructions. 
But, on a more careful review of the means thus placed at my dispo- 
sal, I finally arrived at the conclusion, that, by using diligent “exertion; 
assuming much responsibility, and incurring an expense w was. 
aware the department might possibly not have anticipated, I bight 
strict accordance with my instructions, if favored by the weather and 
in other rea zits ‘succeed in a the eaparation:! in the rose 
ed time. 
“T therefore cecil dotnineiatadt engaging sub-agents and assis 
tants, and proceeded to St. Louis; there (at my own expense, to be re- 
paid to me out of the per diem of the men employed) I laid in about 
three thousand dollars worth of provisions and camp furniture, inclu- 
ding tents, which I caused to be made for the accommodation of the 
whole expedition ; and in one month from the day on which I received 
my commission and instructions in Indiana, (to wit, on the 17th of Sep- 
tember,) I had reached the mouth of Rock River; engaged one hun- —— 
dred and thirty-nine sub-agents and assistants ; instructed my sub-agents _ 
in such elementary principles of geology as were necessary for the — 
performance of the duties required of them; supplied them with sim- 
ple mineralogical tests, with the application of which they were made 
acquainted ; organized twenty-four working corps, furnished each with 
skeleton maps of the townships assigned to them for examination, and 
. the oo : sme where their labors commenced, Tr pared 
