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to follow the general line of the Great Kanawha to the Ohio; a fifth 

 to stretch from the North Carolina line, at some eligible point in Pa- 

 trick county, and to meet the former section at the mouth of the New 

 river ; a sixth to reach from the same state line, some where In Gray- 

 son county, to the valley of the Guyandotte river, and to pursue the 

 general direction of this to the Ohio. 



The detailed location of these six great lines will be made to de- 

 pend, in great measure, on local features, and the exigencies arising 

 out of the peculiar geology and geography of each belt of country to 

 be traversed. Their positions have been chosen with a view to in- 

 tersect the greatest number of strata practicable, and in the most ad- 

 vantageous directions for exposing the formation of every geological 

 subdivision of the state. All the principal ridges are crossed nearly 

 at right angles, and an eye has been had to the greater facilities for 

 investigation afforded by the valleys of the large rivers. 



As before said, the survey of the zones of country lying along the 

 sections, makes but a portion, and rather the preliminary portion, of 

 the whole survey. In the construction of the map, and the detailed 

 examinations of the systematic survey, the wide tracts of country 

 included between these profiles, would require to be minutely tra- 

 versed, especially in the longitudinal direction of the strata, to ascer- 

 tain and depict their boundaries. 



A correct knowledge of any region, sufficiently thorough for prac- 

 tical purposes, can only be attained by running from one formation 

 to the neighbouring ones, crossing their boundaries repeatedly in a 

 zigzag course, so as ultimately to cover the whole surface with a net 

 work of lines more or less close, according to the degree of intricacy 

 in the geology of each district ; influenced too by the value of the 

 mineral contents of the strata. 



It is proposed that the state cabinet, which is to grow out of the 

 survey, should be deposited in a suitable apartment in the capitol, 

 accessible to any citizen of the state, seeking the valuable local and 

 specific information which can only be derived from a collection of 



specimens. 



It is contemplated to commence the formation of the cabinet forth- 

 with ; that is to say, to accompany each annual report with a suite 

 of specimens illustrative of it — to be grouped according to the most 

 natural order in the mean while, and ultimately to receive a thorough 

 systematic classification. 



