10 
f Assembly 
if the volumes contain six hundred pages each, makes 72 cents per 
volume ; the balance of one dollar and fifty cents being required for 
the stitching, binding, &c., not leaving any very sensible amount for 
profits, thereby making it neither profitable or necessary to expend 
much money in putting out the printing of the same to the lowest 
bidder, as your commiiiee are well satisfied that a correct and equita- 
ble estimate can as readily be ascertained for a job of printing, as any 
other mechanical branch of industry or marketable commodity, and 
that no one need be the subject of imposition, by the extortion of 
printers, unless they are too indolent to reckon, or to reckless to think. 
Your committee are decidedly of the opinion, that if the " Natural 
History" of this State be abridged, in accordance with the recommen- 
dation of your committee, that the school districts of the State will 
avail themselves of the opportunity to procure a set for their libraries, 
thus bringing the work in almost every neighborhood, thereby bene- 
fitting, in the most effectual manner, the masses, by placing within 
the reach of all, who may not feel themselves able to place the work 
in their own libraries. This subject the committee feel the impor- 
tance of, and would pointedly call the attention of the Legislature to, 
believing it to be one of the most cogent reasons that can be urged. 
You thereby do what cannot in any other way be done so eflfectually, 
rendering the investment heretofore made, in the procuring this sur- 
vey, of practical utility and application. 
There are yet, doubtless, vast and important localities of mineral 
wealth remaining undiscovered. By thus spreading the informa- 
tion contained in the " Natural History" over the whole State, you at 
once create an enquiry, investigation will of necessity follow, and 
you thus bring into existence a corps of mineralogists, spread over 
the vast territory embraced within our State limits, whose efficiency, 
no one acquainted or conversant with the enquiring disposition of our 
people, will attempt to question. 
Your committee have conversed freely with scientific gentlemen 
upon this subject, and, from all, a most cordial approval of the plan 
submitted by your committee, has been received. We must be 
allowed here to quote an extract from a letter received from Professor 
T. R. Beck, of this city, whose opinion will be received with that 
weight, which his rank and station in the scientific world so justly 
