State Survey.] 420 [February 3, 



among our people. In urging strongly the re-survey of our territory, 

 the Boston Society of Natural History is not unmindful of what was 

 done, and for the time well done, through the action of the State, in 

 authorizing the first survey, forty years since. On the contrary, it 

 recalls with patriotic pride, the fact that that survey was the first 

 made by any State, and that it inaugurated like scientific work over 

 our country, to the inestimable advantage of the whole people; and 

 it recalls too, with just pride, the fact that a very large portion of the 

 work was done by its own members. 



Some of the reports of the first survey were so thorough, and have 

 since received so much revision by their accomplished authors, that 

 but little additional field-work will be necessary in again treating 

 upon the subjects of them. This may, for instance, be well said of 

 the Report on the Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts, now soon to 

 be re-published; nor will much field-work be necessary in some other 

 departments of scientific research, so much having been already 

 accomplished by the labors of distinguished naturalists. Neverthe- 

 less* all the results of such labors should be embraced in a final 

 report of the state survey. In other departments only the continued 

 labor of competent observers in the field for many years can accom- 

 plish the results desired, and this can only be done through state 

 action. Such is that of the geology of our territory, embracing the 

 knowledge of our mineral deposits. 



The importance of a new geological survey is, perhaps, better rec- 

 ognized than that of any other, as so much concerning our rock for- 

 mations and their mineral contents remains unknoAvn ; and yet no 

 work of the former survey was more thoroughly and conscientiously 

 performed than that of Prof. Hitchcock. Perhaps nothing better 

 illustrates the great progress that has been made in knowledge con- 

 cerning the strata of the earth than the fact of the absolute need of 

 new investigation in order to fully comprehend those of our State 

 after his faithful work forty years ago. His views at the time were 

 singularly comprehensive,- and betokened not only great knowledge 

 of what had been done abroad, in the field and in the study, but an 

 accuracy of observation and a power of analysis and comparison 

 which made him peculiarly adapted for the work he was called upon 

 to do. Yet the great progress in science since, notwithstanding the 

 importance of the facts given by him and of his generalizations, 

 make his report comparatively antiquated. No one would more 



