604 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
must necessarily elapse before any results can be obtained and 
published. Delay but defers the gains which we might have 
at once. In material returns the survey will bring back to the 
state many fold, and if a single new industry is organized, or 
an old one improved, the effect upon the general prosperity of 
the state will more than compensate for the expenditure. 
While it is believed that the material arguments for the re¬ 
establishment of a geological and natural history survey in 
the State of Wisconsin are unanswerable, it is held by the 
Academy that the educational arguments are of equal or greater 
importance'. Will the rich and progressive state of Wisconsin 
continue indefinitely to support no survey, while the adjoining 
states of Michigan and Minnesota are reaping the fruits of the 
enlightened policy of continuous state surveys, or will she estab¬ 
lish a survey on a broader and more liberal basis than any 
other state in the northwest? 
C. R. Van Hise, 
C. R. Barnes, 
E. A. Birge, 
Gr. L. Collie, 
A. J. Rogers, 
Committee. 
The following bill for the establishment of a geological and 
natural history survey of the state of Wisconsin was prepared 
by the committee and introduced in the Legislature of 1895. 
It was reported for indefinite postponement by the Committee 
on Claims, on account of the extraordinary appropriations nec¬ 
essary in other directions. 
An Act to establish a geological and natural history survey 
of the state of Wisconsin. 
The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and 
assembly, do enact as follows: 
Section I. There is hereby constituted a geological and 
natural history survey of the state of Wisconsin. 
Section II. This survey shall have for its objects: 
(1) The completion of the geological survey of the state, 
and especially the examination of the rocks, with refer- 
