XX REPORT OF THE STATE GEOLOGIST. 



their value, the solution of which must be obtained before satisfactory 

 information can be given regarding their extent or the most economic 

 method of working them. It is from a failure to appreciate this fact 

 that so many mining enterprises have been unsuccessful. The laws 

 that govern the formation and distribution of ores are as absolute as 

 any others of Nature's enacting, and it is only through a thorough 

 knowledge of them, and the interpretation of the observations according 

 to their tenets, that mining can be successfully prosecuted. This is 

 why it is necessary to have a correct idea of the geology of a district 

 before making definite statements regarding its ores. The finding of a 

 few inches of coal, or a few fragments of copper, have often cost a man 

 thousands of dollars, because he reasoned that they must have come up 

 from below, and that there must be more where they came from, when 

 a knowledge of the geology of the region, and its teachings regarding 

 the occurrence of such materials, would have prevented the expendi- 

 ture of a cent. 



The real connection of geology with agriculture is not at all appre- 

 ciated as it should be. The fact that to the geologist every soil is as 

 much of a rock as is a limestone, sandstone, or piece of gold ore, and 

 therefore to be studied, is not generally taken into consideration, and 

 consequently the idea prevails too often that geology can do nothing for 

 the farmer. There can be no greater error. The search for minerals is 

 only a part, and not by any means the largest part, of the geologist's work. 

 Soils are but the results of the breaking down and decomposition of 

 older rocks ; and many of the rocks themselves are nothing but the 

 altered and consolidated soils of long ago, whereon has flourished veg- 

 etation more abundant even than that of the present. To this vegeta- 

 tion we owe our beds of coal, and in some cases certain beds of min- 

 erals are traceable directly to its influence. More than all, it is the 

 fundamental support of the present life of the earth, and therefore the 

 critical study of its derivation, character and extent, its capabilities as 

 productive soil, the materials for enriching it and making it more pro- 

 ductive, are pre-eminently the study of the economic geologist. Nor 

 do these general statements by any means include all the co-ordinate 

 branches of economic geology, but sufficient has been said to show the 

 breadth of the field it must occupy. 



To accomplish these results an accurate knowledge of the general 

 geology of the State is essential, and the most scientific methods known 

 and the results of all previous geologic research must be made use of, 



