8 



REPORT ON THE GEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT. 



By Josiah D. Whitney, Sturg is- Hooper Professor of Geology. 



In this department a course of Lectures (two a week, lasting 

 through the College year) was delivered to about a dozen mem- 

 bers of the Senior Class in College, and a few others, — graduates 

 and teachers, or Assistant Professors. The subject of this course 

 was the physical geography and geology, and the mineral and 

 agricultural resources of the United States, with especial refer- 

 ence to the possible and probable future development of these 

 resources. This course was, to a considerable extent, a working 

 over, with the aid of extensive cartographic and photographic 

 illustrations, of material collected for the article u United States," 

 to be published in the twenty-third volume of the EncyclopEedia 

 Britannica, mention of which article was made in the last year's 

 Report. This article, which, as written, would occupy the space 

 of an ordinary octavo volume of about 300 pages, has been 

 somewhat abbreviated and condensed by the editors of the En- 

 cyclopaedia ; in view of this fact, and since it is believed that 

 this work will form a convenient text- or reference-book for 

 College and other students, it will probably soon be republished, 

 with considerable additions and emendations, in separate book 

 form. 



The preparation of definitions of words in physical geography, 

 geology, lithology, mining, and metallurgy, for the Century Dic- 

 tionary, has absorbed much time during the past year. This work 

 has been done, partly because it seemed very desirable that 

 words in these branches of science should somewhere be correctly 

 and fully defined (which is something that has not yet been 

 accomplished), and also because it falls in, and is in harmony, 

 with a work long since contemplated, and now in actual prepa- 

 ration by the Sturgis-Hooper Professor ; namely, a somewhat 

 elaborate and complete discussion of the nature and origin of 

 mineral deposits, for which work he has, for several years, been 



