266 Scientific News. [ April, 
When the Territory of Nebraska was admitted into the Union 
in 1867, Congress set apart an unexpended balance of £1,000 for 
a geological survey of the new State; and Dr. Hayden, then a 
young man who had distinguished himself as an indefatigable 
observer and collector (in various expeditions since 1853), was 
appointed to conduct it. In 1868 the operations of the survey 
were continued, and carried westward into the Rocky Mountains 
of Wyoming, the rich tertiary and cretaceous beds of which were 
examined and described in detail, and the famous Yellowstone 
district, with which Dr. Hayden’s name will ever be associated, 
was reconnoitered. The value of the survey was immediately ap- 
preciated, and in 1869 a large appropriation was voted by Congress 
for placing it on its present footing under the supervision of the 
Secretary of the Interior. In 1869 and 1870 operations were 
carried on in Colorado and New Mexico; and full reports 
on the meteorology, agriculture, zoology, and paleontology of 
these regions, of great interest and importance, were drawn up 
and subsequently published. In 1871 the detailed survey of this 
Yellowstone district was begun, and those marvelous natural fea- 
tures were carefully studied which have excited the liveliest in- 
terest in Europe, and have induced Congress, on Dr. Hayden’s 
representations, to appropriate the whole area as a government 
reserve, thus securing to naturalists free access to natural phe- 
nomena which in other places, both in Europe and America, are 
too often monopolized by speculators and closed to the public. 
In 1872 the survey was further extended, and was organized 
into two corps, each provided with a topographer, geologist, 
mineralogist, meteorologist, and naturalist, and the States 0 
Idaho and Montana were embraced in its operations; in 1873 
it was pushed into Colorado, thence into Utah, and on its com- 
pletion in 1876, an area of not less than 70,000 square miles, much 
of it exceedingly mountainous, had been included in the survey. 
e literature of the survey, consisted, in 1876, of 41 volumes, 
classified as follows: 1, annual reports, with maps and sections; 
2, bulletins for giving speedy publicity to new facts; 3, miscel- 
neous publications, comprising tables of elevations, catalogues 
of plants and animals, and meteorological data; 4, monographs 
on various branches of natural history, especially paleontology, 
copiously illustrated with admirable plates in quarto, among 
which are the works of Leidy, Lesquereux, Coues, C. Thomas, 
Cope, Parry, Meek, Packard, Allen, Hayden himself, and 
others, all of whom are well known on this side of the Atlantic; 
lastly, the number of photographs now exceed 4,000, and includes 
besides geological and geographical features of great interest, 
views of ancient architectural remains, and of 1,200 Indians be- 
longing to seventy-four tribes. 
In giving these particulars I speak from some personal know- 
ledge. I wish that the same could be said of the local habitation 
of the survey and its museum, which I am assured contains 4 
OO ee ee ee ee een 
