74 Scientific Intelligence. 
cal observations along the routes traveled by the expedition be- 
tween Indianola, Texas, and the Valley of the Mimbres, New 
Mexico, during the years 1855 and 1856: with an appendix giv- 
ing a detailed report of the geology of Grayson County, Texas; 
by Professor G. G. Saumarp, Assistant State Geologist of Texas 
(1858-1860.) Austin, Texas: State Printing Office, 1886. Pub- 
lished and edited by H. P. Ber, Commissioner of Insurance, Sta- 
tistics and History. 145 pages 8vo, with plates—The scarcity 
of knowledge concerning the details of geological structure in the 
vast area embraced within the political bounds of the State of 
Texas is proverbial. and so inextricably is the little knowledge 
that we possess involved in controversy that any light upon the 
subject, however feeble, is always welcome at this time. The 
appearance at this late day of a volume giving the detail of scien- 
tific exploration that took place over twenty-five years ago in that 
region hasa double value. In the first place it indicates a revival 
of interest in geological investigation by a State government, in 
which a once strong desire to make known its resources in a scien- 
tific manner, was almost entirely killed by the wrangling among 
themselves of the scientific men employed to carry out its inten- 
tions. The knowledge of large regions of hitherto unpublished 
territory which it brings to us is specially welcome. 
The two brothers, Benjamin F. and George G. Shumard were 
ardent lovers of scientific exploration, and their names will 
always be inseparably connected with the scientific history of the 
southwest. The former was more inclined to descriptive paleon- 
tology, and the latter to traveling and collecting, the results of 
his labors often having been turned over to his brother for study 
and publication. He accompanied the government expeditions 
into and across the plains of Texas and New Mexico, and _ espe- 
cially those conducted by Captain Randolph B. Marcey, and Lieut. 
Geo. B. McClellan to the head waters of the Red river, in 1852, 
and Captain Pope’s expedition for boring artesian wells on the 
Staked Plains. In the year 1858 Dr. B. F. Shumard was ap- 
pointed State Geologist by the Governor of Texas, and he, in 
turn, appointed his brother to the position of Chief Assistant, and 
assigned him to that vast region of northern Texas adjacent to 
Red river. These gentlemen began their labors in a country at 
that time exceedingly unpropitious for successful investigation, 
owing to the scarcity of population, the hostility of the Comanches 
and allied tribes, and the absence of rail or water communication. 
Just as the organization was reaching a period when it was ripe 
for the publication of results, a State election brought into power 
a new political party. An ambitious subordinate poisoned its 
executive against the Shumards, and they were suspended, their 
collections taken from them, and their manuscripts lost or de- 
stroyed. The volume before us gives more of the results of the 
survey than any other publication made by the State of Texas. 
It is true that Dr. B. F. Shumard published in the Transactions 
of the St. Louis and Boston societies, up to the time of his death, 
