174 G. 0. Smith — Government Geological Surveys. 



or results, for it even happens that the publishing organ- 

 ization may not have been the major contributor. The 

 full record of American geology, past and present, can 

 not be set forth in terms of Federal auspices alone. 



The three decades preceding the Civil "War, then, con- 

 stitute the era of State surveys, well described by Mer- 

 rill as at first characterized by a contagious enthusiasm 

 for beginning geologic work, later by a more normal 

 condition in which every available geologist seems to 

 have been quietly at work, and finally by renewed activity 

 in creating new organizations. The net result was that 

 Louisiana and Oregon seem to have been the only States 

 not having at least one geological survey. 



The first specific appropriation by the Federal Govern- 

 ment for geologic investigation appears to have been 

 made in 1834, when a supplemental appropriation for 

 surveys of roads and canals under the War Department, 

 authorized in 1824, contained the item "of which sum 

 Hive thousand dollars shall be appropriated and applied 

 to geological and mineralogical survey and researches. " 

 In July, 1834, Mr. G-. W. Featherstonhaugh was appointed 

 United States geologist and employed under Colonel 

 Abert, U. S. Topographical Engineers, to "personally 

 inspect the mineral and geological "character" of the pub- 

 lic lands of the Ozark Mountain region. Overlooking 

 the incidental fact that this Englishman — a man of 

 scientific attainment and large interest in public affairs — 

 was never naturalized, 3 it must be placed to the credit of 

 this first of United States geologists that within seven 

 months he completed his field work and returned to 

 Washington, and on February 17, 1835, his report was 

 transmitted to Congress. Two years earlier Feather- 

 stonhaugh had memorialized Congress for aid in the 

 preparation of a geologic map of the whole territory of 

 the United States, and in connection with this project he 

 suggested that geology as an aid to military engineering 

 should have a place in the curriculum at West Point. 

 This first United States geologist also appears to have 

 combined an appreciation of the practical worth of "the 

 mineral riches of our country, their quality, quantity, 

 and the facility of procuring them," with an interest in 

 the more scientific side of geology, though his hypotheses 

 regarding both economic geology and stratigraphic and 



. 8 Featherstonhaugh, J. D., Am. Geol., 3, 220, 1889. 



