Prof. Rogers's Address, ^c. 137 



Art. X. — Address Delivered at the Meeting of the Association of 

 American Geologists and Naturalists, held in Washington, May, 

 1844 ; by Henry D. Rogers, Prof, of Geology in the University 

 of Pennsylvania; F. G. S., &c. 



Gentlemen of the Association, 



Having been kindly invited by you to preside at the last annual 

 meeting of the Society, it devolves upon me, in accordance with our 

 rules, to bring before you on this occasion a brief history of the recent 

 labors of American Geologists, and to take a rapid survey of the pres- 

 ent condition of geological research in the United States. In attempt- 

 ing to discharge this acceptable but by no means easy duty, I am well 

 aware that my sketch will exhibit many defects and omissions, incident 

 in part to the dispersed state of my materials, but attributable in greater 

 part I fear, to my own imperfect fitness for the task. Those deficien- 

 cies in this short review of American geology, which you cannot but 

 impute to myself, your generosity will, I feel assured, indulgently par- 

 don, but those others, which you must ascribe to the hitherto insufficient 

 concentration of scientific effort in our country, I would not have you 

 so lightly overlook. 



On the other hand, I would here invite your attention to the difficul- 

 ties, which though much abated, still beset any one who attempts either 

 to gather into shape the scattered materials of American geology, or 

 to prosecute extensively a connected train of research. It was in full 

 view of these difficulties and in the hope of lessening them, that our 

 Association was organized. And let us here congratulate each other on 

 the success which has attended our efforts. Scattered over a country 

 of great extent and kept asunder by distance and the claims of profes- 

 sional duties, the AiTierican geologists were laboring amid all the incon- 

 veniences of solitude, each hewing his lonely path through the mighty 

 wilderness of our rocks, isolated in the worst sense of the term, — in the 

 only sense really repulsive to the genuine student of nature, — I mean, 

 isolated from the sympathy, the counsel, the instruction, of those engag- 

 ed in the same glorious enterprise. Though fellow-laborers we were 

 not companions, for we seldom met, knew imperfectly each others' per- 

 formances, and were still less acquainted with each others' social and 

 scientific worth. Many of you, by your published researches had made 

 your labors to be valued, and had won the sincere respect of the rest, 

 but how different was that respect, when from the author we came to 



Vol. XLvii, No. 1.— April-June, 1844. 33 



