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. 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'Cor busy with a collection of Silurian fossils before him, which he was studying with HALL'S first volume of Paleontology as his guide; and in the splendid volumes entitled British Palæozoic 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.