Memoir of Dr. Douglass Houghton. 223 
such a system, and the usual expensive, disconnected, and com- 
paratively uncertain and partial method of geological surveying, 
will be readily perceived. By the former definite and practical 
system, the surveys of the United States have been brought to a 
state of perfection, which comprehends all that a governmental 
survey could require. 
Under the able direction of the Surveyor General for this dis- 
trict, this system of surveys was continued, after the death of 
Dr. Houghton, with such change only as experience suggested, 
until the past season, when it was suddenly abandoned by the 
government, and the usual expensive and unsatisfactory system 
introduced. We have alluded to this subject thus fully, both be- 
other words, it was in his opinion the nucleus of a scientific 
bureau, where not only all the information acquired in the survey 
of the vast country extending from the Mississippi to the Pacific 
Ocean, would be accumulated, but where would be found all the 
discoveries made by the several states in the prosecution of their 
surveys. Such were the plans which Dr. Houghton had formed, 
and which his death interrupted. They were worthy of his gen- 
lus, and we trust will not be permitted to slumber, by the scien- 
. 
tific men of the Union. 
ne 
In 1838, Dr. H. received the appointment of Professor of Geol- 
ogy, Mineralogy and Chemistry in the University of Michigan ; 
which he continued to fill till the time of his death. ‘The insti- 
tution was then in its infancy, and Prof. Houghton’s labors being 
required elsewhere, he was enabled to devote but little time to 
