Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 235 



that now its dominion although not yet perfected is fully estab- 

 lished. 



In proof of this position, however, it is not possible to give 

 any thing more than an outline of our earlier efforts for the pro- 

 motion of geology, and we shall have little time to glance at 

 the agency of individuals in the field within the later years, in 

 which geology has flourished with vigor. During the last fif- 

 teen or twenty years, many of the local governments of the 

 individual states have caused to be instituted geological surveys 

 of their respective territories — all of them appropriating public 

 money, and many of them with laudable liberality, to the great 

 object in view. 



Geological surveys have been ordered and are now in progress 

 or are already accomplished in more than three fourths, and if 

 we include reconnaissances, in four fifths of our states and terri- 

 tories. We trust that with the return of a more prosperous state 

 of affairs, the rest will follow. The general government has 

 caused geological reconnaissajices to be made in the territories 

 which are still unappropriated, as state domains, and the explor- 

 ing naval expedition, charged with the collection of specimens in 

 geology and mineralogy, as well as in other departments of natu- 

 ral history, has already sent to the city of Washington a valuable 

 harvest of these objects, to be deposited in the museum of the 

 National Institute. State collections, illustrating the geology and 

 mineralogy, and in some instances the zoology and botany of their 

 respective territories, are also formed and forming in the different 

 local capitals. Whenever the general government shall perform 

 its duty, by carrying into effect the Smithsonian bequest, (thus 

 imitating the promptness and fidelity exhibited in Boston in a 

 case quite parallel — that of the Lowell fund,) then v/e may hope 

 to have established at Washington in the manner of the school of 

 mines at Paris, a grand national collection, which shall present in 

 a connected and yet independent view, a faithful representation 

 of the geology of our continent. Our neighbors in Nova Scotia, 

 New Brunswick and Canada, have been for some years and still 

 are actively engaged in exploring those important countries, in 

 some parts of which are found great treasures of coal, grit-sand- 

 stone,* iron ore and plaster of Paris. 



* Grindstones of excellent quality. 



