42 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 211. 



Akerly, Gibbs, Godon, Mitchell, Silliman 

 and others ; it did much to nurse the scien- 

 tific tendency which led to founding the 

 New York Lyceum of Natural History iu 

 1817, and some have thought that it aided 

 in like manner the founding of the Phila- 

 delphia Academy in 1812. Bruce'B Journal 

 was succeeded in 1818 by Silliman''s Amer- 

 ican Journal of Science, which from the be- 

 ginning exerted a notable influence upon 

 the development of geological thought and 

 work in our country. 



By 1820 students of geology had become 

 so numerous that the American Geological 

 Society was organized in New Haven, Con- 

 necticut, where meetings were held certainly 

 until the end of 1828. The last survivor 

 of this Society died in New Haven only a 

 few weeks before the formal organization of 

 our Society in 1888. The prominent men 

 in 1820 were Ackerly, Bruce, Cornelius, 

 Cleveland, the two Danas, Dewey, Eaton, 

 Gibbs, Godon, Hitchcook, Maclure, Mitch- 

 ell, Eafinesque, Schoolcraft, Silliman and 

 Steinhauer, but there were some young 

 men who began to publish within two or 

 three years afterwards and who were des- 

 tined to occupy prominent places in geolog- 

 ical literature ; of these, Emmons, Harlan, 

 Lea, Morton, Troost and Vanuxem were 

 already engaged in investigation. 



Before another decade had passed there 

 were groups of geologists in New England, 

 New York and Pennsylvania, while 01m- 

 stead and Vanuxem had made preliminary 

 surveys in North Carolina and South Caro- 

 lina, Troost had begun the survey of Ten- 

 nessee and Hitchcock that of Massachu- 

 setts. 



In 1832 the Pennsylvania geologists, 

 feeling much in need of an official survey 

 of their State, organized the Geological So- 

 ciety of Pennsylvania, to arouse public in- 

 terest and so to bring about the survey. 

 The volume of publications contains papers 

 which attack geological and economic prob- 



lems of the first order. The investigations 

 were not confined to Pennsylvania, but 

 committees were appointed to examine im- 

 portant matters in other States, that the 

 worth of geological work might be made ob- 

 vious. Beyond doubt, the efforts of this So- 

 ciety had much to do with securing the First 

 Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, though 

 no member of the Society was appointed on 

 on the staif. It is the fashion now and 

 then to laugh at these old papers. True 

 enough, in the light of our present knowl- 

 edge, many of the statements respecting 

 Appalachian structure are absurd, but they 

 were made by men who, without State aid, 

 without instruments and without maps, 

 laid a foundation upon which the keen-eyed 

 men of the First Pennsylvania Survey built 

 the superstructure, which endured close 

 re-examination by the second survey and 

 proved the honesty and ability with which 

 the work had been performed. 



But geology was becoming too broad in 

 scope and its workers too numerous to be 

 embraced in a merely local society, even 

 though the list of correspondents was as 

 large as that of the active members. The 

 work in Massachusetts was approaching 

 completion ; that in New Jersey had been 

 completed ; the Surveys of Maine, Connecti- 

 cut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, 

 Delaware, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and 

 Indiana had been begun, and before 1840 

 New Brunswick, Rhode Lsland and Ken- 

 tucky were added to the list. Several of 

 these Surveys had large corps of workers, 

 pushing their studies with all the enthu- 

 siasm of a new calling. In the Appalachian 

 region of Massachusetts, New York, Penn- 

 sylvania and Virginia serious problems 

 were encountered which could not be solved 

 within the compass of a single State. A 

 right understanding of the work done in 

 one State was necessary to a right under- 

 standing of the work done in the adjoining 

 State. Correspondence proved a failure ; 



