INTRODUCTION. 
173 
with a view to its geology, mineralogy, botany, zoology and agriculture/’ The 
“ American Journal of Science,” the “ American Monthly Journal of Geology,” 
by Mr. Featherstonhaugh, and the transactions of scientific associations in Penn¬ 
sylvania, New-York and Massachusetts, were very efficient in enlightening the 
public mind concerning the importance of mineralogy and geology. A board of 
agriculture having been established by the legislature, under the recommendation 
of De Witt Clinton, he proposed in his annual message, in 1819, that that board 
should be authorized to make a statistical survey of the state, and describe its 
animal, vegetable and mineral productions. Not at all doubting that coal would 
be found to compensate for the waste of fuel in the western portion of the state, 
then destitute of facilities for communication with the Atlantic coast, he urged 
that premiums should be offered to promote a search. Private liberality, how¬ 
ever, anticipated this recommendation. Stephen Van Rensselaer, in 1820, autho¬ 
rized Amos Eaton and T. Romeyn Beck to make an agricultural and geological 
survey of the county of Albany. The result of their examination was a descrip¬ 
tion of the rocks and minerals of the county, with an analysis of a variety of 
soils, together with remarks upon the condition of agriculture. In the succeed¬ 
ing year, professor Eaton, with the same liberal patronage, completed a similar 
survey of Rensselaer county. In 1823, the liberality of Mr. Van Rensselaer 
took a wider range, and professor Eaton was authorized to extend his survey 
throughout the region traversed by the Erie canal. His report proposed a gene¬ 
ral geological nomenclature, and contained a description of the strata extending 
from Boston to Buffalo. This publication marked an era in the progress of geo¬ 
logy in the country. It is in some respects inaccurate, but it must be remem¬ 
bered that its talented and indefatigable author was without a guide in explor¬ 
ing the older formations; and that he described rocks which no geologist had, at 
that time, attempted to classify. Rocks were then classified chiefly by their 
mineralogical characters, and the aid which the science has since learned to 
derive from fossils in determining the chronology and classification of rocks, was 
scarcely known here, and had only just begun to be appreciated in Europe. We 
