XIV. STATE GEOLOGICAL HALL AND AGRICULTURAL ROOMS

OF NEW YORK.

EDUCATIONAL USES OF MUSEUMS OF NATURAL HISTORY.

THE Legislature of New York has crowned its munificent appropriations for a Geological Survey of the State, by erecting a spacious building for the exhibition of its natural resources,-its minerals and rocks, its plants and animals, and at the same time for the accommodation of the State Agricultural Society, which is devoted to the highest improvement of these natural resources, by science and art, for the educational and economical uses of its vast and growing population. The cost of the survey-the original exploration, and the publication of the reports, up to this time, exceeds $600,000, and to this must now be added the erection of this hall, on the site of the old State House, at an expense of $50,000. Large as this expenditure is, the state will be manifold richer every year, in all future time, in the discovery and improved working of its mines, in the improvement of its domestic animals, the implements and modes of culture, the destruction of noxious insects, the enrichment of its soil by the application of natural and artificial manures, and the proper alternation of crops, which will result from this survey and its publications, the examination by people from every part of the state of the specimens exhibited in these halls, and the diversified operations of the Agricultural Society from year to year.

The Geological Hall was inaugurated during the annual session of the American Association for the advancement of science, (which was itself one of the direct results of the geological survey,) in 1856, by appropriate addresses from Prof. Agassiz, of Cambridge, Prof. Dewey. and Pres. Anderson, of Rochester, Pres. Hitchcock of Amherst, and Prof. Davies, of Fishkill. From the address of President Hitchcock, as published in the Tenth Annual Report of the Regents of the University of New York, on the Cabinet of Natural History, we present a few extracts:

This, I believe, is the first example in which a State Government in our country has erected a museum for the exhibition of its natural resources: its minerals and rocks; its plants and animals, living and fossil. And this seems to me the most appropriate spot in the country for placing the first Geological Hall erected by the Government: for the county of Albany was the district No. 12.-[VOL. IV., No. 3,]-50.

where the first geological survey was undertaken on this side of the Atlantic This was in 1820, and was ordered by that eminent philanthropist, STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER; who, three years later, appointed Professor EATON to survey in like manner the whole region traversed by the Erie canal. This was the commencement of a work, which, during the last thirty years, has had a wonderful expansion; reaching a large part of the states of the Union, as well as Canada, Nova-Scotia and New Brunswick, and I might add several European countries, where the magnificent surveys now in progress did not commence till after the survey of Albany and Rensselaer counties. How glad are we, therefore, to find on this spot the first Museum of Economical Geology on this side of the Atlantic. Nay, embracing as it does all the departments of natural history, I see in it more than a European Museum of Economical Geology, splendid though they are. I fancy rather that I see here the germ of a Cis-atlantic British Museum, or Garden of Plants.

North Carolina was the first State that ordered a geological survey; and I have the pleasure of seeing before me the gentleman who executed it, and in 1824 and 5 published a report of 140 pages. I refer to Professor OLMSTEAD,* who, though he has since won still brighter laurels in another department of science, will always be honored as the first commissioned State Geologist in our land.

South Carolina commissioned Professor VANUXEM only a year later, to do for her what had been done in North Carolina. This report, however, was never published save in the newspapers. After this there was a long hiatus in the State surveys. In 1828 I published a review of Professor OLMSTEAD'S labors, in the hope of turning the attention of legislators to the subject, but in vain. In 1830, however, I was more successful. Pardon me if I tell you how. Being on my way to visit the Coal regions of Pennsylvania, the newspapers informed me that the State of Massachusetts had ordered a trignometrical survey. I ventured to suggest to Gov. LINCOLN, how desirable it would be to have a geological survey connected with the enterprise. On my return, I found that he had recommended it, and that the Legislature had adopted it, and that a geological commission awaited myself.

It was not till three or four years later, that any other State moved in this enterprise: then followed Tennessee, Maryland, and New Jersey. But in 1836 New York entered upon the work, on a scale more liberal and with a plan more judicious than any other State before or since. She first obtained the opinion of scientific men as to the best mode of procedure, by a circular sent forth from the Hon. JOHN A. DIX, then Secretary of State: then she appropriated over $100,000 to the survey; and now behold the magnificent result, or rather some of the results! For the nineteen splendid quartos already issued do not tell the whole story; since others are in reserve, which are looked for with deep interest by scientific men on both sides of the Atlantic. This survey has developed the older fossiliferous rocks with a fullness and distinctness unknown elsewhere. Hence European savans study the New York Reports with eagerness. In 1850, as I entered the Woodwardian Museum in the University of Cambridge in England, I found Professor M'COY busy with a collection of Silurian fossils before him, which he was studying with HALL'S first volume of Palaeontology as his guide; and in the splendid volumes entitled British Paleozoic Rocks and Fossils, which appeared last year as the result of those researches, I find Professor HALL denominated "the great American palæontologist." I tell you, Sir, that this survey has given New York a reputation throughout the learned world, of which she may well be proud.

Another important result of the New York Survey, was the origination of the Association of American Geologists, which has gradually expanded into the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Many of us who were engaged in the State surveys, were so isolated from one another, that we had few means of comparing views, or obtaining advice in our conclusions. Professor MATHER, I believe, through EMMONS, first suggested the subject of a meeting to the Board of Geologists in November, 1838, in a letter proposing several points for their consideration. I quote from that letter the following paragraph relating to the meeting:

Memoir of Denison Olmsted, American Journal of Education, Vol. V., p.

"Would it not be well," says he, "to suggest the propriety of a meeting of the geologists and other scientific men of our country at some central point next fall, say in New York or Philadelphia. There are many questions in our geology, that will receive new light from friendly discussion and the combined observations of various individuals who have noted them in various parts of our country. Such a meeting has been suggested by Prof. HITCHCOCK, and to me it seems desirable. It would undoubtedly be an advantage not only to science, but to the several surveys that are now in progress, and that may in future be authorized. It will tend to make known our scientific men to each other personally; give them more confidence in each other, and cause them to concentrate their observations on those questions that are of interest either in a scientific or commercial point of view. More questions may be satisfactorily settled in a day by oral discussion, than in a year by writing and publication." Though the Board adopted the plan of a meeting, various causes delayed the first one till April, 1840, when we assembled in Philadelphia, and spent a week in most profitable and pleasant discussion and the presentation of papers. Our number that year was only 18, because confined almost exclusively to the State geologists; but the next year, when we met again in Philadelphia, and a more extended invitation was given, about 80 were present, and the numbers have been increasing to the present time. But in fact those two first meetings proved the type, in all things essential, of all that have followed. The principal changes have been those of expansion, and the consequent introduction of many other branches of science, with their eminent cultivators: In 1842, we changed the name to that of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists; and in 1847, to that of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Such are some of the results of this Geological Survey, that have become matter of history: others, perhaps greater than these, belong to posterity, and need the ken of prophecy to describe. We may be quite sure, however, that this Hall will be a centre of deep interest to coming generations. Long after we shall have passed away, will the men of New York, as they survey these monuments, feel stimulated to engage in other noble enterprises by this work of their progenitors; and from many a distant part of the civilized world will men come here to solve their scientific questions, and to bring far off regions into comparison with this.

The Agricultural Rooms were dedicated by appropriate exercises, during the annual meeting of the State Agricultural Society, on the 12th of July, 1857. The accommodations consist of a large office for the Secretary, a library, a laboratory of analytic chemistry, store room for seeds, halls suitably cased for exhibition of specimens of domestic animals, insects, plants, &c., and a large lecture room. The Geological Hall constitutes the true foundation on which the structure of an improved State Agriculture should rest.

There is,―remarks Hon. Samuel Cheever, in his inaugurating address,-great fitness in this arrangement; there is great intimacy between the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology and Entomology of the State, and its Agriculture. Geology teaches us the order, arrangement and position of the rocks; Mineralogy teaches us where the elements are found which, when the rock is crumbled down, give fertility to the soil which it forms. We wanted a science to teach us the constituent parts of the agricultural plant, that we might know its wants, and what elements to select from the great mineral storehouse to supply those wants and give it growth. This instruction the agricultural chemist and analyst have given us. Zoology gives us the form, classification, history and habits of our animals. Here the chemical analyst comes again to our aid and shows us the component parts of the animal, and points to the vegetables to supply them. Chemistry is here the connecting link between these sciences and that humble yet gigantic agriculture, which shares so largely in the public burthens, and at the same time gives sustenance to the whole family of man, including the men of all the sciences.

Botany, too, teaches us the history of our plants, from the forest tree to the blade of wheat, their classes and orders, their habits and their wants, as well as their adaptation to soil, climate, temperature and moisture.

The foregoing sciences make the farmer acquainted with his friends. Entomology introduces him to the insect tribe, and makes him acquainted with his enemies: it teaches him their history, their habits, the time and manner of their annoyance, and, as far as known, the best means of defense against their ravages, and the means for their destruction.

Valuable indeed to science and to the world are the labors of the Geologist, the Mineralogist, the Botanist, the Zoologist and Entomologist; but not less valuable are the labors of the Chemist, the Analyst and intelligent Agriculturist, who take their work where they leave it, and elaborate and appropriate it to the wants and practical purposes of life. It is humbly but confidently claimed that the intelligent agriculturist who successfully applies the principles of these sciences to enlarge and to improve the means of human life, is entitled to a share in the general commendation as a benefactor of his race.

The geologist who traces a new development in a protozaic layer, makes a contribution to science; but the chemist and agriculturist who follow him and discover a fertilizing element in the crumbling fossil of the trilobite found in the rock, and apply that fertility to the growth of the cereal plant, make a contribution to the means of human life.

When, from the fossil of the saurian, the geologist defined the age of the rock where dry land first appeared, he made a valuable achievement for science; and the chemist also made an achievement when he traced the fertilizing carbonate in that fossil; but the agriculturist made the final achievement for human benefit, when, from the application of that fertility, he reaped his wheat and fed his herds where the saurian first grazed the linchen and the fern.

To make the Geological Hall and the Agricultural Rooms in the largest measure, and to the widest extent, useful, there should be a well organized instructional institution connected with them,—similar in its aims, but more comprehensive in its course of study, than the Metropolitan School of Science, applied to Mining and the Arts, associated with the Museum of Practical Geology, in London. The department of Arts should embrace all the great industrial pursuits of the State, Agricultural, Mechanical and Artistic.

The “Educational Uses of Museums of Natural History," like the State Geological Hall and Agricultural Rooms, are well set forth by the late Prof. Edward Forbes, in an introductory lecture before the Metropolitan School of Mines, above referred to.

Museums, of themselves alone, are powerless to educate. But they can instruct the educated, and excite a desire for knowledge in the ignorant. The laborer who spends his holiday in a walk through the British Museum, can not fail to come away with a strong and reverential sense of the extent of knowledge possessed by his fellow-men. It is not the objects themselves that he sees there and wonders at, that make this impression, so much as the order and evident science which he can not but recognize in the manner in which they are grouped and arranged. He learns that there is a meaning and value in every object however insignificant, and that there is a way of looking at things common and rare distinct from the regarding them as useless, useful, or curious,-the three terms of classification in favor with the ignorant. He goes home and thinks over it; and when a holiday in summer or a Sunday's afternoon in spring tempts him with his wife and little ones to walk into the fields, he finds that he has acquired a new interest in the stones, in the flowers, in the creatures of all kinds that throng around him. He can look at them with an inquiring pleasure, and talk of them to his children with a tale about things like them that he had seen ranged in order in the Museum. He has gained a new sense, a thirst for natural knowledge, one promising to