176 E. A. SMITH PIONEERS IN GULF COASTAL PLAIN GEOLOGY 



In spite of the widespread interest in Florida, no definite State Geo- 

 logical Survey was provided for until 1886, when Dr. J. Kost was ap- 

 pointed State Geologist. He published his first report early in 1887, but 

 the appropriation lapsed after that year. After an interval of 20 years 

 the present Geological Survey was organized in 1907, with Prof. E. H. 

 Sellards as State Geologist. Under his direction the work has been vigor- 

 ously prosecuted, and a number of valuable reports, mostly of an economic 

 character, have been published. In much of this work Doctor Sellards 

 has had the active cooperation of the United States Geological Survey. 



Cotton Cultuee Reports of the Tenth Census. 



Probably no work has done more for the correlation of the scattered 

 accounts of the geology of the Southern States than the Cotton Culture 

 Reports of the Tenth Census (1880), prepared under the direction of 

 Doctor Hilgard, with the enlightened support of Gen. Francis A. Walker, 

 Superintendent of the Census. Besides having general direction of the 

 whole and preparing the general discussions of cotton production in the 

 United States, including soil investigations, the cotton-seed industries, 

 and measurements of cotton fibers. Doctor Hilgard wrote the special de- 

 scriptions of Mississippi, Louisiana, and California. Georgia, Texas, 

 Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Missouri were written up by Dr. R. H. 

 Loughridge ; Tennessee and Kentucky, by Dr. J. M. Saff ord ; North Caro- 

 lina and Virginia, by Prof. W. C. Kerr; South Carolina, by Mr. Harry 

 Hammond, and Alabama and Florida, by Eugene A. Smith. 



Tn these reports a summary of the physical and geological features of 

 each state is first given. Then follow accounts of the agricultural fea- 

 tures and capabilities of the Cotton States, such as should be of interest 

 to immigrants and investors, along with special descriptions of each 

 county, with soil maps and maps showing the relation between the area 

 cultivated in cotton and the total area of each state. In the Mississippi 

 and Louisiana reports Doctor Hilgard included many soil analyses made 

 in the laboratory of the University of Mississippi after the publication 

 of the 1860 report. Many new analyses of soils from all the states con- 

 cerned were carried out in the laboratory of the University of Alabama, 

 under the direction of Doctor Loughridge and myself, and altogether the 

 reports are reliable handbooks of the Cotton States as regards general 

 and agricultural information, and deserve to be far more widely known 

 than they are. 



In a recent letter Doctor Hilgard comments on these reports as fol- 

 lows: "The Census Cotton Report, for all the hard work it cost, has 

 found little appreciation because of the medium of publication, quarto at 



