48 THE DEVONIAN AND CARBONIFEROUS. [bull. 80. 



The Association 2 was formed the year before at the call of the gentle- 

 men of the New York Survey, who " issued a circular inviting those 

 engaged in similar surveys in other States" to a meeting in Philadel- 

 phia. We learn from Hitchcock's address that the first attempt to 

 classify American geology was made by William MacClure in 1807, who, 

 in the field work preparatory to this, crossed the Alleghany Mountains 

 in fifty places. In 1810, Dr. Bruce had started the Mineralogical Jour- 

 nal ; in 1816, Dr. Cleveland's Treatise on Mineralogy and Geology was 

 published; in 1818, Silliman's Journal was begun; in 1818, also, an 

 American Geological Society was founded at New Haven, with William 

 MacClure as its first president. In 1832 the Pennsylvania Geological 

 Society was started. 



In addition to this general activity in the early part of the century, 

 from the year 1824, when the first State survey was begun by Prof. 

 Olmstead in North Carolina, up to the date of this address (1841), State 

 surveys had been started and more or less publication had been accom- 

 plished in the way of reports or accounts of the surveys made in twenty- 

 one States and Territories. The men engaged in these State surveys 

 w r ere as follows : 



North Carolina, Olmsted ; South Carolina, Vanuxem ; Massashu- 

 setts, Hitchcock ; Tennessee, Troost ; Maryland, Ducatel ; New Jersey, 

 H. D. Rogers ; New York, Vanuxem, Mather, Emmons, James Hall, 

 Conrad, and Beck ; Virginia, W. B. Rogers ; Maine, Rhode Island, and 

 New Hampshire, Jackson ; Connecticut, Percival and Shepard ; Penn- 

 sylvania, H. D. Rogers ; Ohio, Mather, Hildreth, Locke, Briggs, and 

 Foster; Delaware, Booth ; Michigan, Houghton; Indiana, D. D. Owen ; 

 Kentucky, Mather (only a reconnaissance); Georgia, Cotting (no re- 

 port had been published up to 1841) ; Arkansas, etc., Featherstouhaugh; 

 Iowa, D. D. Owen and Locke. 



Besides these, a reconnaissance had been made by Nicollet west of the 

 Mississippi, and in 1824 Eaton's Erie Canal Survey had been made, and 

 private surveys had been made by Taylor, Johnson, Silliman, and Shep- 

 ard in coal and mineral regions in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Missouri. 



Hitchcock made slight reference to the actual state of progress in the 

 matter of correlation and classification of the geological terranes ; this 

 can be better learned from the study of the New York reports, for the 

 Paleozoic at least, and the other reports, which it is not necessary here 

 to discuss. 



The last annual report of the New York State Survey was published 

 in 1841 ; sufficient to say here that the Archean was fairly well recog- 

 nized along the eastern border of the continent, and its general extent 



•The Association of American Geologists held its first meeting in Philadelphia on the 2d of April, 

 1840. The following were the original founders present at this meeting : E. Hitchcock, L. 0. Beck, 

 H. D. Rogers, L. Vanuxem, William W. Mather, W. R. Johnson, T. A. Conrad, E. Emmons, J. Hall, 

 C. B. Trego, J. C Booth, M. H. Boyi, R. E. Rogers, A. McKinley, C. B. Hayden, R. C. Taylor, D. 

 Houghton, B. Hubbard. 



E. Hitchcock was elected chairman and L. C. Beck secretary. See Am. Jour. Sci., vol. 39, p. 189. 



