GEOLO GICAL SURVEY OF MISSO URI. 623 



the territory surveyed. This is also necessary to enable the geologist to describe 

 the exact position of any valuable deposit beneath the soil, and for the land-owner 

 to know just where on his farm to search for it. This necessity can be largely ob- 

 viated in Missouri, for any special and local deposit, by giving its position with 

 reference to range and section lines; but for valuable deposits in strata at a cer- 

 tain level, on all farms, verbal description is totally inadequate. Even if the 

 facts have been observed with the greatest accuracy, they will lose much of their 

 value to the individual owner because the descriptions cannot specify the exact 

 locality for him. He may easily be misled into vast expenditure in search of 

 some mineral in a stratum not present within his limits, though perhaps abundant 

 all about him. 



The position of strata, upon which all geological information is based, is de- 

 termined largely by a study of the fossils they contain. To make this work in- 

 telligible to the public, these fossil forms must be correctly described and clearly 

 figured, so that one with sufficient skill may examine the rocks on his own farm and 

 see, by comparison, whether the beds of coal, lead, zinc, etc., described in the 

 State reports, are likely to be found within his limits or are not. For this pur- 

 pose the figures of fossils are of far greater value to the uninitiated than verbal 

 descriptions; and it requires considerable acuteness of observation to notice, even 

 in these, slight differences in form or marking which may indicate widely differ- 

 ent strata, and may easily and greatly mislead an unskilled observer. The col- 

 lection, examination, and classification of fossils in the rocky strata form a large 

 large part of the geologist's work. While much of this work has been done in 

 the State, it has been scattered and fragmentary, and there is great need of a 

 systematic and thorough revision of it all, and especial need of its publication in 

 a compact and easily accessible form. The publications under State authority 

 present a very meager showing of the fossils and their instructive teachings with- 

 in our limits. In all the State surveys thus far published, there are only three 

 palseontological plates, and these illustrate but forty-five species. These are in 

 Swallow's report, published nearly thirty years ago. 



Other fossils of the State are described and figured in the Transactions of 

 the St. Louis Academy of Science, in geological reports of neighboring States, 

 und elsewhere at private expense, and still others are described but not figured 

 in reports of certain railroad and odier corporations. But the State herself Ehould 

 publish, with well executed figures, a full series of the fossils characteristic of the 

 various rock horizons to be found here, many of which have never been describ- 

 ed. Illinois has a most excellent exhibit of her fossils in her six volumes of 

 Geological Reports, which are of great benefit and credit to the State and of im- 

 mense value to science. Iowa, too, another of our nearest neighbors, is far 

 ahead of Missouri, though much behind Illinois. Missouri, with natural re- 

 sources, doubtless surpassing either or both of these States, should not be over- 

 shadowed for the simple lack of making a published showing of her own vast and 

 rich possessions. 



Another work much needed in the State is an exhaustive investigation of her 



