Annual Address. 



17 



public trust, he continued to fulfil up to the time of his 

 death in 1837, and on the removal, from the board, of his 

 friend Mr. Clinton in 1824, he became its president. To 

 no man have the interests of agriculture and of scientific 

 education in this state been more indebted. Having been 

 chosen in 1820, as the president of the state board of 

 agriculture, he soon afterwards, with the view of bene- 

 fitting the agricultural interests of the counties of Albany 

 and Rensselaer, by obtaining and diffusing accurate in- 

 formation in regard to the peculiarities of the soil and the 

 mineral productions, caused a careful geological and 

 agricultural survey of these counties to be made and pub- 

 lished, and gratuitously distributed at his own expense. 

 This was soon after followed by a scientific survey made 

 under his direction and at his expense, by Professor Eaton 

 and his assistants, of the whole line of the state along the 

 Erie canal, and this again was supplemented by another 

 made by Professor Hitchcock, of the line across Massa- 

 chusetts. Again in 1824, Professor Eaton, under his 

 patronage, undertook a scientific and educational progress, 

 accompanied by a body of assistants and pupils, through the 

 whole line of western counties along the line of the canal, 

 for the purpose of making scientific examinations and of 

 delivering gratuitous public lectures on natural history 

 with illustrations and experiments, with the view of 

 awakening local and popular interest in science and its 

 practical applications. To these examples of well-directed 

 private enterprise and munificence, and to the manifest 

 public benefits resulting from them, may, I think, be 

 attributed the great work soon afterwards undertaken by 

 this state of a complete geological survey, and of the pub- 

 lication of the Natural History of the state — a work which 

 has been followed by other states — and which has not 

 only opened up to us our own great mineral wealth, but 

 has added to the scientific reputation of the country in the 

 [Trans. vii.~\ 3 



