Views of Percival. 
227 
systematic order pervading the whole district, indicating that 
the mineral deposits are not casual but regularly rrranged, and 
parts of a connected whole (p. 9]); and again in his summing 
up at the end of his report, he reiterates: “The leading object 
of the detail which I have given of the arrangement of the min¬ 
eral in the crevices and openings, in its distribution through 
the different strata from above downwards, and of the surface 
arrangement in groups and in more extended combinations, has 
been to show that a systematic order prevails throughout, and 
that the mineral deposits are not detached and casual, but com¬ 
bined in regular series” (p. 98). Also: “The traces of order 
and connexion in the surface arrangement appear no less re¬ 
markable than in the vertical arrangement. What I have here 
given is only a small part of what might have been stated; but 
I trust it will suffice to show that the ranges in their bearing 
and in their grouping from the smallest to the most extended 
combinations have been governed by some general laws, and 
have not been merely local accidents.” (p. 101.) 
A second but posthumous report from this gifted man ap¬ 
peared in 1856.* While Dr. Percival was engaged in its pre¬ 
paration, he was stricken down and died on the second day of 
May, 1856. His manuscript was unfinished, but was carefully 
copied and finished for the press. It was addressed to Governor 
Poles Bashford, and reported the results of a trip he had made 
to the northern regions of the state during which he visited 
thirty-eight out of fifty counties. As a general result he 
stated that he was still “more strongly persuaded of the proba¬ 
bility of [success] of continued deep mining, ’’ and adds that 
*' the opinion expressed in my former report that the mineral 
was derived from beneath is strengthened not only by the gen¬ 
eral results of my observations in the diggings, but by the 
appearance of disturbance in the strata, particularly along the 
line of the great body of mineral traversing the middle of the 
district, and by the relation in the bearing of that body to the 
extensive ranges of primary and metamorphic rocks towards 
the northeast, indicating that the mineral may have arisen 
* [Second] Annual Report on the Geological Survey of the State of 
Wisconsin, pp. 111. Madison, 1856. 
