220 Memoir of Dr. Douglass Houghton. 
opportunity of prosecuting hand in hand with its geology, those 
kindred sciences, at a time when the country yet preserved many 
of those plants and animals that become extinct with the pro- 
gress of settlements. “The comprehensive mind of the geologist 
regarded these sciences as part of the one great science of nature, 
and lending mutual aid. 
e season of 1840 was passed by the geological corps in an 
exploration of the southern coast of Lake Superior, and the gen- 
eral results were reported by Dr. Houghton to the legislature the 
winter following. Though displaying the most guarded caution, 
and “telling but half the tale” which the field notes unfolded, 
this report brought to notice such an array of facts, bearing upon 
the mineral wealth of that country, so philosophically deduced, 
and carrying such order and system into what all previous ob- 
servers had regarded as unintelligible confusion, that public at- 
tention was immediately attracted to that region, and thousands 
were soon seeking their fortunes there, who had joined in the ery 
that ‘all was barren.” The novelty of the geological positions 
advanced, and their apparent unconformity, in many particulars, 
with the state of facts existing in other well known mining dis- 
tricts, created only incredulity in those who had received their 
teaching in other schools of science. ‘The Doctor was styled, in 
derision, a “ back-woods geologist.” But the progress of discov- 
ery since, though collected from numerous and independent 
