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REPORT ON THE GEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT. 
By Jostau D. Wuitney, Sturgis-Hooper Professor of Geology. 
In this department a course of lectures (once a week, lasting 
through the College year) was delivered to teachers and others, 
the attendance averaging about twenty-five in number. The 
subject of this course was ‘* Geographical Methods and Results,” 
the history of American geographical discovery being made an 
especially prominent feature. 
The article “‘ United States,” written for the Encyclopedia 
Britannica, has made its appearance in the twenty-third volume 
of that work, and is now being reprinted, and will make a volume 
of about 400 octavo pages. This article contains a very condensed 
review of the physical geography and geology of the United 
States, and also an historical and statistical réswmé of the develop- 
ment of the mining interests of the country, which in the reprint 
now in press will, so far as is possible, be brought down to the 
end of the current year. This work is about half in type. 
A volume of about 250 pages (16mo) has been published 
during the year, entitled, ““ Names and Places,—Studies of Ge- 
ographical and Topographical Nomenclature.” The principal 
object of this volume is to explain the origin and meaning of 
names given to prominent topographical and scenic features, and 
especially to show how these words are used in this country, and 
how our topographical nomenclature has been affected and en- 
riched by the presence on our soil of various nationalities. 
As in previous years, a considerable amount of time has been. 
given to the preparation of definitions of words in geography, 
geology, lithology, mining, and metallurgy, for the Century Dic- 
tionary, these words having been defined in many cases with 
almost encyclopedic fulness. 
Some field-work has been done, chiefly in New England, in 
continuation of the investigation of the surface geology and 
