the Survey, a vigorous collection of materials has been going on, first 

 under the direction of Professor Brewer, and now of Mr. Bolander. 

 This collecting, carried on in all quarters of the State, has furnished a 

 vast mass of materials, including a great number of entirely new gen 

 era and species, and these have been distributed to the most eminent 

 botanists in the country to be worked up an operation which has 

 been going on steadily for the last three or four years the work 

 being so far advanced towards completion that it is thought that the 

 volume of flowering plants may be put to press towards the close of 

 the present year ; but that, at all events, it can be finished and printed 

 in time for delivery to the next Legislature. 



In Zoology there are four volumes under way, and in different 

 stages of preparation, the text of all being well advanced, and nothing 

 required to enable them to be put to press excepting the completion 

 of the illustrations, the drawing and engraving of which has been 

 going on for more than three years. 



Having now given a rapid sketch of the general progress of our 

 work, and shown something of the results accomplished in each de 

 partment, and of what more is proposed to be done, provided we are 

 furnished with the means, I will proceed to discuss a few points con 

 nected with the existence and completion of the Survey, a little more 

 in detail than I have been able to do in the preceding systematic re 

 view. 



Assuming that the plan of the Survey is a good one, and judi 

 ciously contrived, the question arises how is it being carried out ? 

 Forming a plan is one thing, and executing it another. To this 

 question I can only reply that our work, as far as accomplished, has 

 been submitted to those who would unanimously, among scientific 

 men, be regarded as best qualified to judge of such matters, and has 

 met with their warm and decided approval. I have assumed that if 

 the survey was done in such a manner as, to win the applause of the 

 highest authority in science, in this country, that I might consider it 

 as being well done. And when I say highest authorities, I mean 

 such men as Professor Bache, the late eminent Superintendent of the 

 Coast Survey, Dana of Yale College, Agassiz and Gray, of Harvard, 

 Henry and Baird of the Smithsonian, Lea and Leidy of Philadelphia, 

 Guyot of Princeton, etc. From all of these, letters are on file at our. 

 office, expressing sentiments of the warmest interest and the most 

 entire satisfaction in regard to our work, and which are at the service 

 of any member of the Legislature to read and examine. I will take 

 the liberty of reading part of one myself. It is from one of the 

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