234 Prof. Sillhnan's Address before the 



Albany, made an elaborate survey of the geology of the country 

 on the Erie canal. Prof. Hitchcock described the valley of the 

 Connecticut ] Prof. Dewey the western part of Massachusetts, 

 the memoirs of both heing illustrated by geological maps and 

 sections. Mr. James Pierce described parts of New Jersey, the 

 Cattskill mountains, Maine and Florida, &c. &c. The Academy 

 of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, the New York Lyceum 

 of Natural History, and the Albany Institute, formed valuable 

 collections and published important memoirs ; the American 

 Journal of Science and the Boston Journal of Philosophy by 

 Dr. Webster, recorded many of the geological observations of the 

 day, either in the form of original papers or copied from the ar- 

 chives or publications of learned societies. In the American 

 Journal of Science alone there are about four hundred memoirs 

 and communications on geology and mineralogy ; most of them 

 are original papers and by far the greater part are accounts of 

 American researches made in illustration of the mineralogy and 

 geology of the United States, Canada and Nova Scotia. In Can- 

 ada many British officers were very active and successful explo- 

 rers in geology. Dr. Charles T. Jackson and Mr. Francis Alger 

 of Boston, in 1828 and 1829, published in the American Journal 

 of Science a full and able account of the mineralogy and geology 

 of Nova Scotia, with a map and pictorial illustrations. In 1831, 

 this memoir much enlarged and improved by a second visit to 

 Nova Scotia appeared in the Transactions of the American Acad- 

 emy at Boston. 



In the above enumeration, we have not included hundreds of 

 miscellaneous notices, besides numerous communications pub- 

 lished in the journals and transactions of our academies, and in 

 various journals more or less scientific. Nor do we include many 

 reports on geology and mineralogy made to the general govern- 

 ment by their authorized scientific travellers, such as the journals 

 of Lewis and Clark, Mr. Schoolcraft and Major Long ; nor geo- 

 logical works relating to foreign countries although written here 

 — as, for instance, the excellent account of the Azores or Western 

 Islands, by Prof. J. W. Webster of Harvard University, who was 

 one of our early and active geological explorers. 



It is sufficiently apparent, that since the commencement of this 

 century, and particularly within the last twenty-five or thirty 

 years, geology has become in this country a favorite pursuit, and 



