X PREFACE. 



lar in quality to that used for other State documents ; and the volume, in size and 

 finish, was hardly in keeping with the magnitude and value of the work of which it 

 constituted the record, and was less creditable to the Geological Corps and to the 

 State than it would have been if the Legislature had conveyed full authority to carry 

 its intentions into execution. 



Before the publication of Part II. of this volume the Legislature convened, and im- 

 mediately authorized the Secretary of State to purchase in open market larger and 

 better paper. Part II., therefore, appeared in much more creditabte style than Part I. 

 Although the want of uniformity in the size of these volumes and the inelegant ap- 

 pearance of Part I. are universally regretted, and are causes of special mortification 

 to the members of the Geological Corps, some compensation may be found in the 

 fact that the cost of the volume has been diminished just in the ratio of its defects 

 of style in publication. It will be noticed that the numerous engravings which illus- 

 trate the volume are executed in a manner that leaves very little to desire, and that 

 Part II. was printed on paper of a size and quality not inappropriate to the import- 

 ance of a document which will not only have permanent value at home, but will be 

 widely distributed, and be, to some extent, an exponent of the culture of our peo- 

 ple; and yet the entire cost of twenty thousand copies — eighteen thousand in 

 English and two thousand in German — of the two volumes comprising Parts I. and 

 II. of Volume I., was $69,381.94, or $3.47 per copy. This is exclusive of the cost of 

 the bound atlas of Prof. Andrews's maps, which cost $12,400. The very large edition 

 published of each of the reports of the Geological Survey has been regarded by some 

 persons as an extravagance, and one for which the Geological Corps is responsible. 

 This is, however, an undeserved imputation. The selfish interests of the Geological 

 Corps would have been much better consulted by the publication, in more elegant 

 style, of a very much smaller number of these reports. They would then have been 

 more highly prized, and would have reflected greater honor on their authors, since 

 geological reports, like other things, are valued very much in the ratio of their rarity. 

 They have been reconciled, however, to the possibility that their publications would 

 be contemned because so common, by the consideration that, in issuing them in large 

 but cheap editions, the Legislature had best carried out the wholesome democratic 

 principle of " the greatest good to the greatest numbers." It is but just to all con- 

 cerned, however, that the credit or discredit of these large editions should be given to 

 the Legislature, and not to the Geological Corps. It should also be said that the pro- 

 priety of publishing large editions of the geological reports has been attested by the 

 eagerness with which they have been sought by our people, and the rapidity wilh 

 which the entire editions have been exhausted. Already thousands of applications 



