GEOGRAPHICAL

GEOLOGICAL

SURVEYS

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GEOGRAPHICAL AND
GEOLOGICAL SURVEYS

By J. D. WHITNEY

From the North American Review for July and October, 1875

CAMBRIDGE
WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY
Slmtoersfti) $«ss
1875

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL
SURVEYS.

I. GEOGRAPHICAL.

Theee was perhaps never a time when so much general in
terest was felt in geographical work as at the present. Geog
raphy is decidedly the fashionable science ; that is to say, not
exactly geography, but geographical exploration, or, in other
words, the investigation of the yet unknown portions of the
earth. All the European nations are vying with each other
as to which shall be the lucky country to secure the honor of
being the first to solve some one of the few great geographical
problems which yet remain to be worked out. England soon
starts her expedition to the farthest North, roused to action in
this direction, after many years of waiting, by the successes of
the Americans, the Swedes, and the Austrians. The Germans
themselves are attacking the one great question which Africa
has yet to offer, namely, the tracing of the mighty Congo
River to its source ; while an Englishman is also struggling —
unless he has already succumbed to some one of the many dan
gers of African exploration — to follow the connection of the
lakes about which Livingstone's last work was done, and which
he believed to be the head of the Nile, but which are now
known, almost to a certainty, to belong to the hydrographical
basin of the Congo.
Geographical societies and journals were never more numer
ous in Europe, or more fully patronized, than they now are ;
geographical papers find their way into the quarterlies and
monthly literary magazines ; and the sale of photographs of
scenery is rapidly increasing, and tending powerfully to develop
an interest in all peculiar features of the earth's surface, and

thus leading to the study of comparative geography. All along
the base of the great European chain of mountains, the Alps,
and on both sides of it, clubs have been formed for the purpose
of uniting the means and energies of the many in the work
of exploring the unvisited portions of the range, and of thor
oughly working out the details of that which is as yet only
partially known. These clubs number their members by the
hundreds, and their published volumes already form a goodly
series. But while all this and much more of the same kind is being
done, indicating a lively interest on the part of the general
public in those explorations which have, as the result to be
attained, some brilliant discovery, or the settlement of some
long-discussed problem, there is, at the same time, another
class of geographical work always in progress and on a vastly
greater scale and of vastly greater importance than that of
mere exploration, but in regard to which the general public
knows almost nothing, and to which the popular magazines
hardly ever allude. We refer, of course, to the great topo
graphical surveys which are being carried on in every civilized
country in the world, almost without exception, and which have
for their object the preparation of topographical maps of the
regions surveyed. Such maps have as their essential features
absolute accuracy and minuteness of detail ; and in this
respect they contrast strongly with the work of preliminary
exploration, or of reconnoissance, as this sort of surveying
is commonly called. By the work of a preliminary reconnois
sance, the character of the dominant physical features of a pre
viously unknown region is ascertained, a laudable curiosity
satisfied, and the nature of certain great commercial problems
indicated. The topographical survey, on the other hand, pre
supposes a country already settled, and having made consider
able progress in civilization, art, and commerce, so that land
has acquired a high value, thus rendering accuracy in the
determination of its subdivisions a matter of pecuniary im
portance. The object of the writer of this paper is, to explain
in a popular way, without the use of any more technical terms
than are absolutely necessary, the difference between geograph
ical exploration, or reconnoissances, and topographical surveys,

and also to show what the latter are intended for, and what
other civilized nations are doing in this line. It will then be
interesting to inquire what the United States, either in their
collective capacity or singly, have been able to accomplish
towards a complete mapping of their own territory, and to give
some hints as to what yet remains for us to do, that we may
be put on a par with other countries with which we are much
in the habit of considering ourselves, if not a little superior,
at least fully equal hi point of general intellectual develop
ment. The recent discussion of this subject in the Legislature
of the State of Massachusetts has very clearly brought out the
fact that, in regard to the value and cost of a topographical
survey, or, in other words, of a correct map, our law-makers
and a good part of the general public are very much in the
dark ; and it is hoped that a careful setting forth of some of
the principal facts, by one who has had considerable experience
in this sort of work, under United States and State authority,
may be of interest, and perhaps useful when the subject is again
brought up for discussion.
Let us first consider in what way the surface of the earth
may be delineated, so that the result may be available for use.
Almost every one, even the youngest school-boy, has some gen
eral idea of what a map is, and how by certain conventional
signs it is the aim of the map-maker to place before the eye a
miniature representation of some portion of the earth's surface,
so that the relative position of its natural features, and of the
artificial constructions or lines drawn upon it, may be taken in
at a glance. These natural features are rivers, lakes, oceans,
mountains ; the artificial constructions are streets, roads,
buildings, railroads, canals, and the like ; the artificial lines
which need to be indicated are the boundaries between States
and towns, and other similar subdivisions of public a ad private
property. That the above-mentioned features can easily be
indicated on a map by lines, when their position has been care
fully ascertained by instrumental measurements, is aot difficult
to understand ; but there is another important element which
needs representation, but which can at best only b3 approxi
mately shown, and in regard to the best method of doing which
there is no clearly established opinion. This element is the

vertical, or the relative elevation of different portions of the
surface, which we know exactly whenever we can ascertain
the precise height of every point above some fixed datum line,
and which can also be approximately indicated by conventional
symbols, as will shortly be explained. As this is an important
question in topographical surveys, and one not well understood
by the general public, some little detail in regard to it may be
acceptable. The most accurate and, in some respects, the most satisfac-;
tory way of representing the surface of any region is, to make a
model of it ; that is, a copy, in relief, necessarily on a greatly'
diminished scale, by which all the natural features, including
the vertical element, are represented. Such models are usually.
first worked out in clay, just as a statue is copied by a sculp
tor from a living model, and then cast in plaster ; or it may be
carved in wood, or cut in cork, or made by piling sheets of card
board cut into the proper shape upon each other. The data
for such models must, of course, be obtained by measurements
on the earth's surface, just as they would have to be if a map
were to be made. These topographical models are particularly
interesting and valuable when they include regions covered by
lofty and precipitous mountains ; and such have been made for
parts of Switzerland which are visited by great crowds of pleas
ure-travellers. One, in particular, at Geneva, is wonderful in
its execution, and is studied with the greatest interest by thou
sands who have climbed or tarried with delight under the
shadow of the " monarch of mountains." Such models, how
ever, are not only extremely costly, but they are, as may well
be imagined, very cumbrous and entirely unsuited for transpor
tation ; neither can they be duplicated without great cost, un
less limited to very small areas and made on a small scale.
Hence they are rarely used, unless in peculiar and exceptional
cases. Thus, for instance, in laying out a park for a large city,
where the work is all to be done at once,and where the amount
of money to be expended is very great in proportion to the area
of ground used, and where the vertical element is of great im
portance, a model may often be of great assistance and indeed
almost indispensable.
A photograph from a model gives, if taken with skill, under

a suitable illumination, a wonderfully clear idea of the relief of
the surface. One such, of the vicinity of Mont Blanc, done by
a French artist, on a scale of 1 : 80,000, lies before us, and
nothing can be more satisfactory than the way in which the
form of the surface is brought out by it, so that the eye can
appreciate, at a glance, the exact relative position and elevation
of the different parts of that great mountain mass. There are
obvious reasons, however, why such models and photographs
from models cannot come into general use. They are too ex
pensive and not sufficiently portable, — portability being a very
essential element in the use of geographical material. They
are well adapted, however, for many purposes in teaching, and
especially for conveying the first general idea of forms of sur
face to the young ; they are also invaluable for illustrating
geological structure in difficult and complicated regions.
Paper is the material on which the topography of a country
is usually exhibited ; and maps drawn upon paper, or else en
graved or lithographed and then printed on that material, are
in almost universal use. Hence a map means a representa
tion on paper of some part of the earth's surface. It is easy
to see that the first question to be asked in constructing a map
is, What shall be its scale ? or, What proportion shall it bear
to nature ? The school-boy's map of a hemisphere can hardly
be more than a hundred-millionth of the natural size of the
part of the earth which it covers, since it must show half the
world on one small piece of paper ; while the British Ordnance
Survey map of the city of London is on a scale of one-thou
sandth, and occupies no less than 821 sheets. The former
hardly does more than roughly indicate the boundaries of a
continent, and of the principal states into which it is divided ;
while the latter exhibits the exact form and position of every
building and division line of the land in the city. It will be
easily understood that, in order that small objects may find
room on which to be represented, a large scale must be adopted.
It will also be not difficult to perceive that, in order to be able to
prepare a map on a large scale, the preliminary topographical
work must have been done with a proportionate degree of ac
curacy an I minuteness of detail. The amount of time and
money which has to be expended on a work of this kind is

8
proportionate to the amount of information it is intended to ex
hibit, and that this expenditure should be proportional to the
importance of the area to be surveyed, that is, to its wealth and
the density of its population, seems evident; and this would lead
us to infer that the mostly thickly settled and richest coun
tries must have the most accurate maps. This, however, is
not uniformly the case ; the general intelligence of the people,
or their rulers, their habits of thought, and their appreciation
of the practical use to which scientifically accurate work may be
put, are also important factors, as will perhaps be discovered
from what is said further on in these pages.
The determination of the scale to be adopted in any topo
graphical survey means, then, the determination of the accu
racy with which it is to be conducted, or the amount of detail
to be put into the work. And it does not appear difficult to
understand that, in a large country or state, it may be advisable
to employ several different scales, or to proportion the accu
racy of the survey to the importance of any separate division.
A country like Belgium, of very small area, and with a popula
tion about equally distributed over its surface, would naturally
be satisfied with much less variety of scale than would be ad
visable in Norway or Sweden, some portions of whose territory
are very thinly inhabited. The same considerations would
apply still more forcibly to our own country, great areas of
which are almost worthless, or at best of no importance, ex
cept as having to be passed over in order to get in the shortest
way from one part to another of our extended territory. It is
true, however, that the same country usually requires maps on
more than one scale, even if the survey is to be equally accurate
over the whole area. For local details and for ordinary prac
tical use, a map on a large scale is needed ; but this requires
that the work shall occupy a great number of sheets, on each
of which only a small area can be given ; so that, for general
geographical purposes, where the eye needs to have before it at
one time a considerable extent of territory, in order to obtain
a connected idea of its physical features, it is necessary that a
compilation on a reduced scale should be made, by which a
considerable number of sheets are compressed within the limits
of one. Thus in the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, maps

9
on both the six-inch and the one-inch scale are furnished, and
are equally in demand.
Having determined the degree of accuracy with which the
work shall be prosecuted aud the scale or scales which shall
be used, it is necessary to decide how the vertical element,
already alluded to, shall be exhibited. And this is a matter
of some difficulty, and one in regard to which there have been
formerly considerable differences of opinion. We have seen
how an idea of the relief of the surface can be given by means
of light and shade, in the case of the photographic copy of a
model, which is wonderfully effective in conveying the idea of
differences of elevation, the effect depending exclusively on the
distribution of the light and shade caused by the obliquely fall
ing rays of the sun ; were a photograph to be taken from such
a model, with the rays descending vertically on it, the illu
sion or perception of the relief of the surface would be en
tirely lost. The same thing can be done, although less per
fectly, by a skilful handling of the brush on paper, or by the
lithographer on the stone with the crayon, giving a sort of
bird's-eye view of the region to be mapped ; and, in the hands
of a thoroughly artistic worker, with an eye for topography,
much may be accomplished in this way. This method of indi
cating the relief of the surface is used now to some extent, es
pecially in maps of regions covered by mountain ranges, where
a considerable area is to be shown at once, and where, from the
nature of the country, as well as from the necessarily small
scale adopted, it is not expected that anything more than a
general idea of the topography can be given. The map of the
Thian-Schan range, recently published by Petermann, and that
of California and Nevada, by the Geological Survey of the first-
named State, are good instances of the application of this
method. But for an accurate topographical survey, where it is desired
and expected that a close approximation to the vertical ele
ment shall be obtainable from the map, and not merely a pic
ture conveying a general idea to the mind, other methods have
to be adopted. An approach to accuracy is made by shading
the hills by means of short, straight lines, or hachures, as they
are generally called. Most of our ordinary geographical maps

10
have the position and direction of the mountain ranges deline
ated on them by these hachures, which, as ordinarily used, are.
only a sort of conventional symbol, intended to indicate vaguely
the existence of a hill or ridge, or series of ridges, and too fre^
quently having a perverse resemblance to a cluster of caterpil
lars crawling over the surface of the map. The original idea.
of these lines is, that they indicate the course which a stream
of water would take in running down the side of the range, in
the line of most direct descent, thus furnishing a clew to the
direction of the slope. Many years ago a German topographer,
named Lehmann, gave a more precise value to these hachure.
lines, by proportioning their thickness to the angle of slope of
the surface they were intended to represent. Thus, by this
system the steeper portions of the slopes appear on the map in
darker shade than the less inclined surfaces, so that the relief:
is indicated something in the same way as if the hill-shading;
were done by the brush, in the manner indicated above, while
the eye can determine from the thickness of the lines employed,
although only approximately, the angle of the slopes. Many
beautiful maps have been made, according to this system or
some modification of it. Thus the Dufour map of Switzer
land, as it is called, in which Lehmann's method, modified by
the introduction of an oblique illumination, was used, is a mas
terpiece of the chartographic art.
Topographical maps were formerly made, in Europe, almost
exclusively for the purposes of military defence, that is, to
guide generals in arranging the movements of their armies;
and it is only in later years that the civil uses of these surveys
have become more prominent. Hence, as the demands of
commerce, agriculture, and manufactures have begun to be
heard more frequently and louder than those of war, more
accurate work has been required, and the insufficiencies of the
hachure method for details have become evident. The angle
of a slope was the important element when the movement of
artillery up or down it was the question to be decided; but
the civil engineer, who has the more peaceful object in view of
building a railroad or cutting a ditch, wants a section of the
line he has to pass over, or, indeed, sections of many lines,
that he may choose the one best adapted to his purpose ; and .

11
he wishes to know the absolute height of each point in that
section above the sea-level, or some other datum line, which
may have been selected as the plane to which all the heights
should be referred. This is done by means of contour lines
drawn upon the map, so as to connect points having the same
elevation above the datum line, and at greater or less vertical
distance from each other, according to the amount of accuracy
and detail which may be required. The steeper the slope the
nearer to each other the contours will fall, so that an increased
steepness of the ranges will be indicated to the eye at once by
the crowding together of the lines, thus reproducing, in a
measure, the effect of the brush-shading spoken of above.
This method may be understood more easily by those unac
customed to maps made in this way by using a simple illus
tration. If we suppose in a lake a mountainous island, a
thousand feet high at its highest point, to be sunk by ten
successive stages of one hundred feet each, then at each stage
of the sinking the water will meet the land and mark a line
upon it connecting all the points which are respectively 100,
200, 300, and so on, feet above the original level of the lake.
The lines thus marked by the rising edge of the water would
be exactly in the places which contour lines accurately run at
vertical distances of 100 feet would occupy. Any person
looking at such contour lines would see at a glance what por
tions of the island were 100, 200, and so on, feet above the
lake level ; and if the slopes were pretty regular, he would be
able to get a good idea of the relative heights of all the other
points intermediate between those lines. The advantage of
this system of contouring, as it is called, is, that from any
map on which such contour lines are indicated a section can
be drawn at once, which will more or less accurately repro
duce the slopes and exhibit the elevation of all points on that
section. And such sections are invaluable and, in fact, indis
pensable, in operations connected with the building of roads,
railroads, ditches, canals, and engineering work of all kinds.
The degree of accuracy with which such sections can be drawn
depends on the distance apart of the contours. In cases of
great importance, and over limited areas, they may be fixed
at a distance of two or three feet apart vertically. In ordinary

12
topographical surveys they may be drawn at distances of from
twenty to a hundred feet or more, according to the nature of
the country and the contemplated accuracy of the work.
A good topographical map of any region, therefore, will have
indicated upon it all natural objects, such as lakes, rivers, and
smaller water-courses ; artificial ones, namely, boundaries of
fields, enclosures, roads, houses, etc. ; and, besides these, it
will exhibit to the eye and furnish for use the vertical eleva
tion at all points above the level of the sea, this being usu
ally chosen as the datum line from which the altitudes are
reckoned. And by " level of the sea " is usually meant mean
low tide, or else the mean between mean low and mean high
tide. Thus far we have chiefly confined our remarks to the meth
ods by which topographical information is brought into an
available form, so as to be presented to the public on paper.
And, indeed, many persons are so little acquainted with this
kind of work, that they imagine the plotting of the survey and
putting it into the form of a map to be the essential thing.
This is the case indeed with most or all school-maps and with
many others which are offered to the public, especially in this
country ; they are simply compilations and workings over of
other people's labors. But wherever an accurate map exists,
there must have been done by somebody, and at somebody's
expense, in the field, an amount of labor, and that of a kind
demanding the highest degree of skill and immense patience,
compared with which the mere plotting and engraving of the
work is comparatively insignificant. Few persons, except those
themselves professionally engaged in such surveys, have any
idea of the amount of labor, and of course of time and money,
required by a thoroughly accurate topographical survey, even if
the area over which it extends be one of moderate dimensions.
It may seem an easy matter to measure a line on the ground of
half a dozen miles in length ; and so it is, if the region be level
and it be a matter of no consequence whether the measurement
be correct, provided it comes within a few inches of the truth.
If a traveller wished to know the distance from one town to
another, he would consider it quite a superfluous degree of
accuracy that he should be informed to the nearest rod ; while in

13
buying a piece of land in a large city a difference of half an
inch in the width would be a matter of importance. Now, while
most of the determinations of position from which the skeleton
of a map is made are done by means of the measurements of
angles and not of lines, there must lie, to start with, a base
measured somewhere on the surface, as a necessary prelim
inary to the triangulation, or the angular measurement of
the net-work of triangles which covers the region to be
mapped, and which forms the frame, so to speak, into which all
the details are to be fitted. This base line must, however, be
measured with the utmost precision, even down to the smallest
fraction of an inch ; for any error made at this preliminary
stage of the work would be many times magnified as the work
was extended from its original starting-point, and the value of
the whole would be destroyed. It would be hardly possible to
convey to the uninitiated an idea of the skill which has been be
stowed on the construction of the instruments with which this
base measuring is to be done, and of the patience and care
with which they must be used. With the apparatus devised by
Bache and Wiirdemann, and used on the United States Coast
Survey work, distances are measured with such precision that
the probable error in one mile is only about two hundredths of
an inch. And to show the accuracy with which the work may
be extended from a measured base by triangulation, it may be
stated that a line 5.4 miles long on Chesapeake Bay was
connected in the primary triangulation of the United States
Coast Survey with a measured base of 8.7 miles on Long
Island, the two being 208 miles distant from each other in a
straight line. Yet the measured length of the base of verifica
tion on Chesapeake Bay agreed with its calculated length, as
determined by computation of thirty-two connecting triangles,
within four inches. Thus the same degree of accuracy is
required in the angular as in the linear measurements, the
instruments required for each of them being alike delicate and
ingenious in their construction and requiring the most refined
skill for their handling. As a general rule, the sides of the
primary triangles should be made as long as possible ; that is,
the two ends must be as far apart as vision aided by powerful
telescopes can be extended. The object sighted at one end of

14
the line is a beam of the sun thrown by a mirror directly into
the axis of the telescope at the other end. By this beautiful
contrivance the stations may be in some cases as much as
a hundred miles distant from each other, while the average
length of the sides of the primary triangles in the Ordnance
Survey of Ireland is fully sixty miles. This preliminary work
is called the main or primary triangulation, and the points
fixed in position by it are determined with all the precision
that is possible by means of the most refined observations
made with the largest and most perfect instruments that can
be constructed. Further approaches to absolute accuracy are
made by means of frequent repetitions of the observations,
which are afterwards examined by the aid of mathematical
analysis, so that every possible source of hidden error may be
detected. It is to the points thus determined by means of the
primary triangulation that the rest of the work is connected
and referred ; a less degree of accuracy being required for the
secondary and tertiary triangulations, because these can al
ways be checked by means of the primary stations. This
more detailed work is simply a dividing up of the large tri
angles into smaller ones, each step in the operation having as
its object the fixing of the position of more points ; and this is
carried on until the whole surface of the country has been cut
up into triangles of suitable dimensions. In the British Ord
nance Survey over districts where the scale of six inches to a
mile is to be used, two points have been fixed by the triangu
lation on every square mile ; and where the scale is five feet
to a mile, sixteen points have been determined on the same
area. Into the framework thus elaborately prepared the
minute details are fitted, and this is done of course by the aid
of comparatively small instruments, the use of which requires
much less skill than is needed when the larger ones have to
be employed. The plane-table is almost exclusively used on
the Continent of Europe for the detailed work ; and by means
of this instrument the work is plotted on the field, and only
needs to be inked in afterwards. By the aid of photolithog
raphy these plane-table sheets can easily be multiplied to any
extent ; and it is one of the greatest advances recently made
in topographical surveys, that the original work can thus be

15
cheaply duplicated, and that all land-owners can have without
delay copies, on the largest desired scale, of the original sur
veys of their own property.
Having thus explained as concisely as possible the nature of
the operation of a topographical survey, it will be desirable to
refer briefly to what is being done in Europe in the way of
preparing accurate maps of the different states, before passing
on to a review of our own needs. But space will not admit of
our doing anything more than merely to indicate, for a few of
the most prominent countries, the scope of their topographical
work ; the simple catalogue of the great maps in process of
publication in Europe, made as concise as possible, would oc
cupy many pages of this Review.
Let us begin with Great Britain, which, including Ireland,
has an area of nearly 111,000 square miles, and where the
topographical survey has been going on since about 1784.
The scientific work is partly performed by officers and privates
of the Royal Engineer Corps,* and it is officially known as the
"Ordnance Survey." Its total cost, from 1791 to the end of
1864, including the military pay of the men employed, was
£2,991,624, and may be estimated to have been up to the
present time about £ 4,200,000. The scales adopted are nu
merous, and in case of some cities are as large as five and even
ten feet to the mile. The principal published maps, however,
are on two scales, one of six inches, and the other of one
inch to the mile (1 : 10,560 and 1 : 63,360). Of England
the map on the one-inch scale was begun in 1784 and finished
in 1869 ; but the projection employed in it was defective, and
it is in other respects not up to the present requirements of
the country, hence it is now in process of working over and
republication. Of the area surveyed on the six-inch scale,
24,877 square miles had been completed in England and
Wales, and 27,829 in Scotland, up to the end of 1873. Ire
land, on the same scale,, was entirely finished in 1845, and all
the sheets, 205 in number, published without, and about half
with, the hill-shading. Besides the maps on the six-inch and
one-inch scale, plans are furnished of any district as called for,
* 382 military, including officers, and 1,446 civil assistants were on the Ordnance
Survey staff in the year 1872.

16
on the scale of 1 : 2,500 (about 25 inches to the mile), made
by photozincography ; but these are not necessarily engraved
or published. The map of London is on a scale of 1 : 1,000,
and is comprised in 821 sheets. The various publications of
the Ordnance Survey are sold in single sheets as wanted, at
very moderate prices ; but so great is their number, that the
cost of a complete set, as far as already published, amounts to
over £ 3,000. A great deal of work is prepared for the use of
the government on very large scales ; but it is chiefly the six-
inch and one-inch maps which are of importance to the general
public. At the present rate of progress it will require about
ten years to complete the survey.
In Belgium the scale adopted is 1 : 20,000, the area of the
country being about 10,000 square miles ; 450 sheets will be
required, of which 137 were published up to the end of 1873 ;
the contour lines are drawn at distances of one metre, every
fifth one being indicated by a heavier line ; the sheets are lith
ographed and printed in colors, the rivers and lakes being in
blue, the lettering and roads in black, the meadows and forests
in different shades of green, the buildings in brick-red, and the
gardens in carmine.
In Prussia, since 1849, new and more perfect methods have
been introduced into the topographical surveys ; the plane-
table sheets are now published on a scale of 1 : 25,000, and
with contour lines at distances of 5, 12 J, or 25 feet, according to
the nature of the country. The publication of the plane-table
sheets was commenced in 1868, and in 1873 120 had been
issued. There has also been, since 1841, a general map in
process of publication, on a scale of 1 : 100,000, which will be
comprised in some 400 sheets, of which nearly all are issued.
These are engraved on copper and have the topography, or hill-
shading, indicated according to Lehmann's system, as modified
by General Muffling.
In Baden, the new map was commenced in 1874, on a scale
of 1 : 25,000, and with contour lines at 10 metres' distance. The
work is mainly a revision and correction of older surveys, and
is expected to occupy six years, at a cost of about 80,000 florins.
In Saxony, the original survey was commenced in 1780 and
completed in 1806 *on a scale of 1 : 12,000, the area of the king-

17
dom being 5,600 square miles. A topographical map was
issued in the years 1837-1860, in 22 sheets and on a scale of
1 : 57,600. A new map was determined on in 1860, on a scale
of 1:100,000, and it was completed in ten years; there are
two editions of this, one with the line-work only and the other
with the hill-shading.
Having now shown what is doing in some of those European
states which are, comparatively speaking, rich, densely inhab
ited, and with moderate areas of territory, let us turn to the
consideration of some countries which have only a thinly scat
tered population and a large area. Russia, for instance, with
its enormous territory, just about twice the size of that of the
United States, Alaska included, has been for many years ac
tively engaged in prosecuting geographical surveys. The map
of Russia in Europe, embracing about 2,100,000 square miles,
has been under way since 1857, and will be embraced in about
700 sheets, of which 454 had been published in 1872. This is
on a scale of 1 : 126,000. The military map of Poland is on
the same scale, and is embraced in 57 sheets, all of which are
published. Special maps of the Caucasus have also been com
pleted ; and, recently, a map of Central Asia. Norway has an
area of 123,300 square miles, and a population about that of
Massachusetts ; that is, our own State is eighteen times more
densely populated than Norway. But this comparatively poor
country has set itself on having a good topographical map on a
scale of 1:100,000, and which will occupy over 200 sheets.
Those which have already appeared have been highly praised
for their execution by competent judges ; they are printed in
chromolithography, like those of Belgium. Sweden also, very
similar to Norway in respect to area and density of popula
tion, has her topographical maps on the same scale (1 : 100,000),
and the work is already nearly half completed, the first sheet
having been published in 1860.
We have thus given, necessarily in a very concise manner,
some idea of the scope and methods of topographical surveys ;
and, before going on to consider what has baen done in this
country, it will be well to say a few words on the methods em
ployed for mapping regions where, owing to the nature of cir
cumstances, only imperfect work can be done, as in the first
2

18
rough reconnoissance of an uncivilized region, or where the pov
erty and ignorance of the people have not yet allowed them to
grasp the idea of a geographical map, and where consequently
all such work has to be done for them by other nations. In
parts of Central Asia the topographer must get what informa
tion he can, without the use of instruments, and not even ex
hibiting a note-book, but trusting almost exclusively to mem
ory, or to a few hasty lines pencilled at moments when the
jealous vigilance of the natives might accidentally be relaxed.
Most of our knowledge of the geography of Central Africa, such
as it is, has been got almost witliout instrumental assistance.
In such cases distances have to be guessed at, or roughly deter
mined by keeping an account of the time employed on the
march and estimating the pace of the animals ridden or driven.
An odometer fastened to a wheel of the vehicle gives a still
better approximation, when the ground is not too rough.
Schweinfurth, the eminently successful African traveller, having
lost his watch, with untiring patience counted his steps for six
consecutive months, thus getting a quite respectable basis for a
plotting of the region traversed. The direction is kept by
means of the magnetic compass, and a great deal of valuable
information has been obtained by these most simple means for
determining the relative position of the various objects noted.
The geographical traveller, however, usually has at his com
mand the means of more 'or less accurately checking his daily
sketches of the country, by means of astronomical observations.
One element of geographical position, the latitude, is easily de
termined with portable instruments, for the use of which but
little skill is required ; but the fixing of the longitude, even if
only to within a few miles of the truth, is a matter of consider
able difficulty. To determine the longitude, so that the result
may be depended on as being not more than two miles in error,
requires a long series of observations made with skill, and with
instruments which can hardly be called portable. But within
the last few years the construction of numerous lines of the
magnetic telegraph, some of which run through quite uninhab
ited regions, as, for instance, the one traversing Australia from
north to south, has made the accurate determination of longi
tude comparatively easy in many places where before it was

19
almost impossible, and has thus rendered great services to geog
raphy. The chronometer, which does such excellent service at
sea, is of very little use to the traveller by land, except for rough
work, since the inevitable jolting consequent on moving about
in wagons or on horseback is fatal to the accuracy of its going.
With these ' preliminary remarks, which, it is hoped, will
make that which follows intelligible to the general reader, we
pass to the consideration of the progress in geographical work
in our own country. And, first, we have to call to mind the
extent of our territory and its very diversified character ; and,
with but slight consideration, it will be evident that different
portions of our vast area are very differently situated as re
gards their chartographic necessities. Without taking Alaska
into consideration, we have, roughly speaking, three millions
of square miles of territory, embracing almost every conceiv
able variety of soil and climate, and including the grandest
expanse of fertile plain and the roughest and most inaccessible
ranges of granite pinnacles. Valleys meandering among low
forest-clad ridges, and offering every inducement for settlement
and cultivation, are present in one part of our country ; while,
in another, we have precipitous canons, cut through the solid
rock to the depth of thousands of feet, and from the edges of
which one may have in full sight an abundance of wholesome
water, and yet die of thirst, from the sheer impossibility of climb
ing down the almost vertical walls by which the stream of life-
giving fluid is hemmed in. The Atlantic Slope, the Appalachian
Ranges, the Mississippi Valley, the Plains, the Great Basin, the
Pacific Slope, — these all have their peculiarities of soil and
climate, and are suited to invite settlement in very different
degrees ; so that, while portions of our territory are already
densely populated, others are uninhabited, unless by a few half-
starved, wandering Indians, and will always remain so. It is
evident, therefore, that no one system of topographical work
would be applicable equally to all parts of the country ; but
that a judicious discrimination will have to be exercised in
selecting scale and methods best adapted to the varying wants
of each particular section. It must also be remembered that,
in the conflict between State and United States authority, dif
ferent parts of the country are very differently situated as

20
regards their rights and duties in this very matter of topo
graphical surveys, as will be explained more fully when speak
ing of the United States Land Surveys. No one can doubt
that Congress, if it saw fit, could organize and cause to be
conducted to completion a topographical, or a combined topo
graphical and geological, survey of the whole area of our
country ; but this has not been done, nor is there reason to
suppose that it will be. Something has been accomplished,
however, and that must now be examined. And we will speak
first of the preliminary reconnoissances and surveys which" have
been undertaken, mostly by the authority of Congress, and in
the region west of the Mississippi, because nothing of this sort
has been done, or needed to be, in the Atlantic States, or in
the region east of that river, where the " Land Office Surveys,"
to be noticed further on, have long been established.
Twenty-five or thirty years ago the western half of the North
American continent, north of Mexico, with the exception of
its- coast line, roughly laid down by the old Spanish and Eng
lish navigators, was known to geographers only in the vaguest
possible way. The courses *of the principal streams — the
Missouri, the Columbia, and the Colorado — had been approx
imately mapped, it is true ; but the details of the interior were
not much better known than is the centre of Africa at the
present day. Up to the time of the acquirement of California
from the Mexicans by the United States, progress in the ex
ploration of this vast region had been extremely slow. Our
government had little idea how soon the Pacific side of the
continent was to become an important part of our Republic.
From time to time, since the beginning of the present century,
small expeditions had been sent out to explore its trackless
wastes ; the daring and restless fur-traders had wandered
vaguely over regions which it seems incredible that they
should have had the audacity to reach ; and, from their rough
notes and unskilled observations, maps had been put together
in which the outlines of the physical structure of the country
began dimly to appear. As late as 1826, however, our maps
represented a narrow chain of mountains as traversing our
whole territory from north to south, in longitude 105° to 110°,
and dividing the waters flowing into the Atlantic from those

21
tributary to the Pacific. Besides the Columbia and the Colo
rado, three other great rivers were indicated as heading in
the Rocky Mountains, and running directly west to the Pacific.
These were called the Buenaventura, the Timpanogos, and the
Los Mongos. Thus the existence of the most striking feature
of our western geography — the Great Basin — was entirely
unsuspected at that time.
The memorable expedition of Captains Lewis and Clarke,
in 1804 to 1806, — the first important one ordered by our
government, — had made known the position of the Upper
Missouri and the Columbia ; and the excursions of the Spanish-
Mexicans, from the southwest, had furnished us with the ma
terials for indicating the course of the Colorado with some
approach to accuracy ; but all the region between this river
and the Columbia, comprising an area of about half a million
of square miles, was vague and indefinite. Even Lewis and
Clarke, who were generally extremely careful and accurate in
their work, considering the means at their command and the
circumstances of the party, were deceived by the size of the
Willamette at its mouth, and represented it on their map as
heading far to the east in Salt Lake ; while, in reality, its
course is really parallel with the Pacific coast, and at but little
distance from it.
Major Pike was the first American explorer who reached the
sources of the Colorado, and the second who crossed the di
vide between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. This was
in the years 1805-1807, just after the return of Lewis and
Clarke. In this expedition — made to explore the sources of
the Arkansas — Pike struck a large stream, which he supposed
at first to be the Red River, and afterwards the Yellowstone
(so vague was the knowledge of our geography at that time),
but which is now known to have been the source of Grand
River, the southernmost of the two great branches which unite
to form the Colorado.
Humboldt's map, accompanying his great work on New
Spain, was compiled and published soon after the explora
tions of Lewis and Clarke and Pike had been completed, and
contained all that had been ascertained by the Spanish-Mexi
can explorers about the territory now included within our

22
domain as far north as latitude 42°. This map was less in
error, in some important particulars, than many others pub
lished years later, for it did not show any rivers heading in
the Rocky Mountains and running due west to the Pacific.
Great Salt Lake had been indistinctly recognized at that time ;
and a body of water with that name, the limits of which were
not defined, is given on Humboldt's map ; while the existence
of another large one farther north, and called Timpanogos, is
indicated as doubtful : this latter one was laid down on much
later maps, as being the head of the Los Mongos River. The
name Los Mongos has disappeared from our maps, but that of
TimpanogOs * still exists, and is given to a small stream run
ning into Utah Lake.
Major Pike was the discoverer of a prominent mountain,
called by his name, at the base of which he camped, and for
which he seems to have entertained an almost superstitious
reverence. He says that " it is so remarkable a mountain as
to be known to all the savage nations for hundreds of miles
around " ; and he did not attempt to climb it, for " no human
being could have ascended to its pinnacle." Its elevation he
estimated at 18,851 feet. This mountain for some time gave
the name to what is now the State of Colorado ; and when the
discovery of gold began to draw a crowd of emigrants in that
direction, they were universally known throughout the West
as " Pike's-Peakers." The elevation of this point is now
known to be a little over 14,000 feet, and a United States Sig
nal-Service station has been established on its summit.
The expedition of Major Long, in 1819, 1820, to the head
of the Platte, was the first one sent out by our government,
equipped in anything like a respectable manner, and provided
with scientific observers and naturalists, charged with the
investigation of the geology and botany of the region traversed.
One of the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains, and the only
one visible from the line of the Pacific Railroad, bears the
honored name of Long. The same officer afterwards made
the first exploration of the Minnesota or St. Peter's River.
The sources of the Mississippi were roughly mapped by Lieu
tenant Allen in 1832.
* " Timpan " is the Shoshone word for rock.

23
Up to this time we were still without any definite knowledge
of the region between the Colorado and the Columbia. The
existence there of a large salt lake was vaguely known, and
had been for a hundred and fifty years, much that was mythi
cal being connected with it by various geographers. There is
little doubt that it had been seen and navigated by American
fur-hunters as early as 1824 ; but they never thought or cared
to publish to the world the facts they had observed. Captain
Bonneville, of the United States Army, was the first educated
man to visit this remarkable interior lake, and to ascertain and
make known that there was a vast region, between the Rocky
Mountains and the Pacific coast, of which the waters had no
drainage to the sea.
Bonneville's expedition was not under the patronage of the
government ; he obtained, however, leave of absence from the
army as well as leave to pay his own expenses, and to furnish
himself with instruments ; and, because he stayed away some
what longer than was expected, he was dismissed the service.
Indeed, Bonneville seems to liave been a man very ill-used by
fate ; for his work was forgotten or ignored by subsequent
explorers, notably by Fremont ; the names he gave to the
prominent features of the country which he discovered were
never adopted, and not even the influence of Washington
Irving was sufficient to make the intrepid explorer's name
stick to the lake he was really the first to make known to
the world. He never even got so far as to be a candidate for
the Presidency ; neither was he called the " Path-Finder " ;
that name he must have dropped somewhere on his route, for
the one who followed him picked it up.
Bonneville went entirely around the Great Basin, going out
by the Valley of the Humboldt, which he called Mary's River,
and returning by the old Santa Fe trail, which was the one
used by the native Californians in travelling from the southern
Spanish settlements on the Pacific coast to Santa Fe. His
narrative, edited by Irving, was published in Philadelphia in
1837, in two volumes, with two maps. It does not appear,
from anything that Fremont published, that this work had ever
come under his notice.
Nicollet, a Savoyard, who came to this country about 1831,

24
and -who was a skilful practical astronomer, did a good amount
of valuable geographical work in the years 1836 - 1843, first on
his own private' responsibility, and afterwards in the employ of
the government, and chiefly about the sources of the Missis
sippi. The region he explored, and was the first to map
approximately, has since been surveyed by the United States
Land Office and has become the flourishing State of Minnesota ;
but the value of Nicollet's service, as one of the pioneer geog
raphers of the country, cannot be forgotten. He was the
first explorer in this country who used the barometer with
skill for the determination of elevations in the interior, and it
was as his assistant that Fremont learned the use of portable
astronomical instruments.
We have now mentioned ' all the most important reconnois-
sances and explorations, having for their object the development
of the geography of the Far West, previous to those of Fremont.
With this energetic and intrepid, if not always judicious, ex
plorer, may be said to have commenced the first systematic
investigation of the geography of the region west of the Rocky
Mountains. Thanks chiefly to the influence of his father-in-
law, Colonel Benton, Fremont, whose explorations began in 1842,
was well fitted out by the government both as to men and
instruments, and he had a great advantage over all previous
workers in that field, in that he was accompanied by a skilful
.assistant, Charles Preuss, so that he could devote himself to
the astronomical observations, while Preuss attended to the de
lineation of the topographical features of the country, — a kind
of work in which he was highly proficient. Fremont made
several expeditions across the mountains, in the fourth and last
one of which the party suffered terribly, having been overtaken
by winter snow-storms, so that, as is universally believed in
California, they were driven to actual cannibalism.
It is only the three first expeditions which are important, or
of which any account has been published. The first was in
1812, up the Platte to the Sweetwater, then to the Wind River
range, and back down the North Platte. The reports of this
and the next expedition — that of 1843 and 1844 — were is
sued together, and have been much more widely circulated and
read than any other geographical documents of the kind ever

25
published in this country. This second expedition, in which
Fremont supposed that he had discovered the " Great Basin,"
in which, as we have seen, he was anticipated by Bonneville,
was really a grand triumph over every kind of obstacle ; it was,
however, less remarkable than that of his predecessor ; since,
while the one was accompanied by a large and well armed
party, provided even with artillery, the other was only one of a
small band of volunteer explorers, more than half of whom were
swept off in one battle with the Indians. Fremont's party
started from Kansas in May, 1843, on the second expedition
across the mountains. They followed up one of the branches
of the Platte, through the Black Hills, up the Sweetwater, to
South Pass, — then generally supposed to be the proper line
for a railroad across the continent, — thence by a circuitous
route to the Boise River and the Columbia ; thence on the east
side of the Cascade Range, by Pyramid and Mud Lakes, down
the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada, which was crossed in
midwinter after much suffering and many dangers. At the
great ranch of Sutter, one of the survivors of the Swiss guard
of Charles X., who had settled near the junction of the Amer
ican River with the Sacramento, Fremont was hospitably
received ; and, after recruiting his party, he started on the
return trip, going south to the head of the Tulare Valley, and
then recrossing the Sierra, and back through the southern por
tion of the Great Basin to the Parks of the Rocky Mountains,
and down the Arkansas to the starting-point, which he reached
after fourteen months of almost continuous journeying.
Of the next expedition, in 1845-46, the results have never
been published ; but in 1848 a map was issued, accompanied
by a pamphlet entitled " A Geographical Memoir upon Upper
California." This map was the first representation of our
Western territory which made anything more than a distant
approach to correctness. It gave at least a tolerable general
idea of the most striking geographical features of the region :
the Parks, the Sierra Nevada, the Great Basin, with its nearly
parallel north and south ranges ; the great Lava Plain of
Oregon ; the dry plateaux of Southern Utah and California :
these were ill indicated with more or less clearness.
And now, just at the close of Fremont's career as an

26
explorer, came an event which had a lasting influence in a
variety of directions, and among others in that of the geog
raphy of the West. The Californian gold excitement, and
the consequent rush of emigration across the plains to the
Pacific shore, seemed all at once to bring that region close to
us which had been before so distant and little cared for. The
establishment of a line of steamers by way of the Isthmus of
Panama to California led to the building of a railroad to con
nect the two oceans at a convenient point. Soon communica
tion by rail through the heart of the continent began to be
talked about, but at first as something only possible perhaps
in a distant future. The matter was more and more discussed,
and then Congress was appealed to, and it was urged that a
survey should be ordered for the purpose of ascertaining the
most feasible route. Appropriations were made for this pur
pose, and several surveying parties organized under the direc
tion of the Secretary of War, officers of the United States
Engineer Corps being placed in command of them. The work
was continued from 1852 to 1857 ; and in addition to flhe
reconnoissances made with a special view to railroad routes,
there was considerable topographipal material collected, and
quite a number of naturalists were also employed in investigat
ing the geology of the region traversed, and in making col
lections in all departments of natural history. The routes
explored were near the forty-ninth, forty-seventh, forty-first,
thirty-eighth, thirty-fifth, and thirty-second parallels. The
work was hastily, and some of it carelessly, done, most of
the persons employed having had little or no experience in
topographical or geological surveys; but, on the whole, the
results formed a large addition to our previous stock of knowl
edge ; and the collections, especially, were of great value as
giving the material for making out a pretty full account of the
distribution of animals and plants over the vast area traversed
by the exploring parties. Thirteen ponderous quartos were
issued within two or three years after the field work had been
completed, and are familiar to all — as to their exterior, at
least — as the " Report of the United States Pacific Railroad
Surveys." Maps were made by each party of the region em
braced within the area of its explorations ; and from them, and all

27
other available sources of information, a general map was com
piled under the direction of Lieutenant (now General) Warren.
This map has been so much altered and worked over at the
United States Engineer Bureau, since its first appearance in
1857, that it has but little now remaining on it of the original
material. Its scale is about forty-seven miles to an inch, and
it was compiled and drawn with great care and skill by Mr.
Freyhold, much difficulty having been found in reconciling the
erroneous and conflicting determinations of longitude, as is
fully set forth in the elaborate and valuable memoir by Gen
eral Warren which accompanied the map in question. Indeed,
it was especially ¦ with regard to longitudes that the United
States Pacific Railroad surveys were deficient, there being but
few good instruments taken into the field, and fewer still of
good observers who went with them. A delay of a few months
in beginning the work, supposing the interval to have been
devoted to preparing suitable instruments and training observ
ers in their use, would have added greatly to the value of the
results. As it happened, curiously enough, not one foot of the
ground explored by these parties for a transcontinental rail
road is passed over by the line as it has actually been built,
excepting the valley of the Humboldt River, which was part of
the regular emigration route at that time, and almost an un
avoidable link between the Atlantic and Pacific.
The Mexican and Northwestern boundary surveys have
accurately fixed the lines which separate us from British terri
tory on the north and Mexican on the south. The former was
completed in 1856, and the latter much more recently. 'The
results were of little value from a geographical point of view,
since the topography was worked up only in the immediate
vicinity of the lines surveyed. A Report on the Mexican Boun
dary Survey was published by our government, in two volumes,
and illustrated without regard to expense, the most valuable
portion of it being that relating to the botany of the region
adjacent to the line. No full report has ever been issued with
regard to the running of the Northwestern boundary, nor have
any of the maps been published. The line has been estab
lished and marked, and left to time and the Indians to take
care of. So with other government surveys of lines dividing

28
the individual States. They have not been creditable to the
country, either in the methods or accuracy of the work ; nei
ther have they added much to our knowledge of the geography
of the country, and rarely has anything been published in
regard to their results. The work done on the line between
California and Nevada is one of the worst instances of this
putting of costly and important undertakings in the hands of
incompetent men.
The expedition of Lieutenant Ives up the Colorado River,
made in 1857, 1858, developed interesting facts in regard to
the physical geography and geology of that very remarkable
region ; but the chartographic portion is very defective, the
work having been of the most sketchy description.
At the time of the commencement of the War of the Rebel
lion, there were several reports of geographical explorations in
the possession of our government, whose publication was de
layed by the troublous condition of the times, and which appear
now to be buried in the archives of the departments at Washing
ton, and destined never to see the light. One of these reports was
an important one ; it related to an expedition under the direc
tion of Colonel Macomb, having for its object the exploration
of the San Juan River, one of the principal affluents of the
Colorado on the south side. Another was that of General
Warren's reconnoissance, in 1855-1857, in Nebraska and
Dakota ; and still another contained an account of the recon
noissance of the head-waters of the Missouri and the Yellow
stone under Captain Raynolds, in 1859, 1860. The geo
graphical results furnished by these various expeditions, and
by many other less important ones, made under government
auspices, have gone to the United States Engineer Bureau, and
have been utilized in working over Warren's map of the United
States. They were all reconnoissances, and almost without
exception too defective in the astronomical determination of
position to allow of their being used, except for a general map
on a very small scale, where detail was not necessary, and where
discrepancies of a few miles could be easily put out of sight.
Up to 1860, the United States had been entirely unsupported
by the individual States and Territories in the work of adding
to our stock of geographical knowledge of the Far West. The

29
Land Office Surveys — of which more presently — had made
some progress in California and Oregon ; but hardly a begin
ning elsewhere to the west of the Rocky Mountains. These
two were, indeed, the only organized States west of the 104th
meridian, and they together hardly contained half a million of
inhabitants ; but little was therefore to be expected from this
quarter, unless done by the central government. At this time
there was a good general knowledge of the geographical out
lines of a large part of the region west of the Mississippi ;
only the southern and western portions of what is now the
State of Nevada and a part of Utah were still marked on our
maps " unknown." No detailed work, however, had been done
in all this vast region, and the structure — both geographical
and geological — of the mountain ranges was something which
had not received the slightest attention. Even the elevations
of the prominent mountains were unknown y not a single high
peak, in all that vast complex of ranges which we call the
Cordilleras, had ever been measured. There was also the
chronic difficulty with regard to longitudes. Not a single point
between the Mississippi and the Pacific coast had been accu
rately enough determined to justify its being used with confi
dence for subordinating other work to it. Salt Lake itself,
which ought to have had the best established position in the
region, since it had been made the special object of a costly
expedition, was found by the telegraphic observations of the
United States Coast Survey, in 1869, to be six miles east of
the position which had been assigned to it by Warren.
In 1860, the State of California made a beginning in the
direction of accurate work, by the establishment of a geo
logical survey. Among the provisions of the Act, by which the
work was authorized, was one requiring the preparation of
" suitable maps," and this was construed by the State Geol
ogist to mean maps as accurate as could be made with the
means at his command. In the ten years during which this
work was carried on, considerable progress was made in devel
oping the detailed structure of both the Coast Ranges and the
Sierra Nevada, and several maps were published, on scales of
two and six miles ; and also a general one of both California
and Nevada, on the scale of eighteen miles to the inch. An

30
important work in four sheets, giving the topography of the
whole Sierra Nevada, on the scale of 1 : 380,160, was
nearly completed, and three sheets had been engraved in a
style worthy of high praise, when the work was suddenly
stopped by the Legislature in 1874, although the entire ex
penses of the survey in all departments, including geological
and natural-history work as well as the costs of publication,
had been considerably less than $20,000 per year from the
beginning. The explorations of the Central Pacific Railroad, for estab
lishing their line, gave the first clear idea of the topography of
the region between Salt Lake and the Sierra Nevada, along
the thirty-ninth and fortieth parallels, — a region traversed by
more than twenty nearly parallel ranges of mountains, many
of which are little inferior in height and elevation to the Pyre
nees. Several lines were surveyed through Nevada, in the
hope that a feasible route might be found across these ranges,
and that thus the road might be run direct to Salt Lake City,
without the long detour to the north", by way of the valley of
the Humboldt, by following which they would be obliged to
leave what were then the most important mining districts of
the Great Basin far to the south. By combining these surveys,
which were executed by Butler Ives, a skilful topographer, a
quite accurate map of the northern portion of the Great Basin
was obtained ; which, however, was never published. This
map covered almost precisely the same ground as the western
half of the Fortieth Parallel Survey, of which more presently.
The Union Pacific Railroad made no surveys having any topo
graphical value ; but those of the South Pacific added some
few items of importance to what was previously known of the
region at the base of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and
New Mexico. The Northern Pacific, on the other hand, con
tented itself with compiling, from Warren's map and other
authorities, a large and geographically worthless diagram,
which was widely circulated, with the proposed route of the
road indicated on it, and the sterile deserts of the Northwest
as far north as latitude 52° marked in large capitals, "The
Continental Wheat Garden!"
The " United States Fortieth Parallel Survey " and the

31
" United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the
Territories " will be noticed further on, when we come to
speak of work now in progress. At present, we have to turn '
our attention to what has been done in the States east of the
Mississippi, and in the inhabited portions of the great valley
of that river, towards working up the geography of the east
ern half of our territory. And it may, in the first place, be
stated, that for the valley of the Mississippi we have to depend
chiefly on the United States Land Surveys, while for the Atlan
tic States the basis of our geographical knowledge is the
United States Coast Survey, supplemented by a large amount
of material of a very mixed nature, and not at all thorough in
execution or trustworthy in detail. To appreciate the char-
tographic condition of this portion of the country, it will be
necessary, first, to give some idea of the operations of our
Coast Survey.
The United States Coast Survey is a work of such magni
tude, so important to the geography of the country, and, withal,
so creditable to American science, that it will be proper to
take some pains to make ourselves acquainted, in a general
way, with its methods and progress. It is the only great
scientific work in this country which has been uninterruptedly
carried on for any considerable time ; and one of the few
things done under the authority of the national government
in which every American citizen can take pride. The impor
tance of an accurate knowledge of the coast line of a com
mercial country like our own was something that the dullest
and least scientific mind could hardly fail to perceive, and it
is not surprising that such a survey was ordered ; but it is,
indeed, something to be wondered at, that a work, requiring
such an amount of time and so large an expenditure of money,
in order that it might be executed in a creditable manner,
should have got itself fairly established as a national institu
tion. Having been started, it was rather to be expected that.
it would be put in charge of some one who would contract to
have it done within the shortest possible limit of time, and
who would have had but one idea, — that of pocketing the
largest amount of profit at the end of the operation. Indeed,
it is rather a matter of luck than anything else that the Coast

32
Survey became what it is, and, being what it is, has con
tinued to exist. Such a work needed, as its head, a man, not
only of extensive scientific acquirements, but at the same
time of extraordinary executive capacity. Such a man might,
perhaps, be found without great difficulty ; but he must, in
addition to the necessary scientific and executive ability, pos
sess the art of managing politicians, and the personal, mag
netic influence needed to carry, every year, a bill through Con
gress, sanctioning the expenditure of a large sum of money.
Bache had all this, and, besides, a tenacity of purpose which
no amount of opposition could overcome.
The Coast Survey, as first started, was placed, in 1807,
under the direction of Hassler, a Swiss by birth, who had em
igrated to this country in 1801. He was a man of high ability,
and his ideas of scientific accuracy were far beyond the com
prehension of the men of his day in his adopted country.
He was, however, a very eccentric individual, quite wanting in
tact and executive ability. He had the fixed idea that he was
the only person in the country who knew anything about geo
detic work ; and he was probably very nearly right, at the
time the work commenced, although great progress, in that
respect, had been made before his death, which took place in
1843. But for sixteen years of the time since the survey was
commenced, the work had been suspended, owing to the finan
cial troubles following our second war with England.
In 1844, Bache was appointed superintendent of the Coast
Survey, and he continued actively engaged in the duties of
that position until 1864, when, overwhelmed by the load of
care and responsibility which this survey, and many other sci
entific labors incident to the War of the Rebellion, laid upon
him, his health gave way, and he was obliged to leave the
country, in the hope that repose and freedom from care would
restore the powers of the disorganized brain. But the relief
came too late ; he lingered on, retaining the nominal superin-
tendency until 1867, when his troubled spirit found eternal rest.
At the time of Hassler's death, the Coast Survey was in
progress between Rhode Island and Chesapeake Bay, a single
base from which to start the work having been measured on
the south shore of Long Island. Five large charts had been

33
engraved, but nothing published. Bache at once recommended
the adoption of a more comprehensive system, and succeeded
in obtaining the approval of Congress and the necessary funds.
According to this system, the coast was divided into several
distinct sections, as nearly of the same extent as convenient,
and work was commenced and carried on simultaneously in
each of them independently of the others. There are eleven
such sections in all, each, as a rule, with its own base line. Of
the accuracy with which these bases have been measured, we
have already spoken in the preceding pages. By the aid of
the triangulation carried along the coast, in accordance with
the principles already indicated, the shore line has been laid
down with accuracy, and the minute details of the topography
given for a distance of from one to three miles inland, accord
ing to the nature of the locality. This fixing of the exact posi
tion of the line of the coast forms the basis of the hydrograph-
ical work, which is the part of the survey of the most impor
tance to the mariner and to commerce, but with which we have
not to occupy ourselves in this connection. It is with the work
of the Coast Survey, as forming the basis of the chartography
of the interior of the Atlantic States, that we have to do at
present. As the net-work of primary triangles extends, owing to the
great length of their sides, far back from the coast, a consid
erable number of interior points are thus fixed accurately in
position, and the work of tlie Coast Survey thus affords a basis
for a convenient extension. Favored by the remarkably in
dented character of parts of our shore line, some States, like
New Jersey and Maryland; have really had no inconsiderable
portion of their topography thus accurately given them at the
expense of the United States.
A few years ago a beginning was made towards extending
the triangulation of the Coast Survey farther into the interior
than was needed for strictly coast work, with the idea of
thus preparing the way for making the survey a national one,
and doing away with its limitation to the shore line. The
first reference to anything of this kind we find in the Report
for 1870, in which the superintendent states that a new item
is introduced into the estimates, " small in amount, but of
3

34
inestimable importance to the scientific accomplishment of the
survey." The item in question is, " for extending the trian
gulation of the Coast Survey, so as to form a geodetic connec
tion between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United
States." The amount asked, which was granted by Congress,
was only the almost insignificant one, as compared with the
total demanded for the work, of $ 15,000 ; the whole amount
called for to continue the survey being 1746,000, while
$ 643,000 was the sum actually voted by Congress for the pre
vious fiscal year. In the Report of the succeeding year, 1871,
we find that this estimate was increased to double the sum pre
viously asked for, namely, to $30,000, and the proviso added,
" that the triangulation shall determine points in each State •
in the Union which shall make requisite provision for its own
geological surveys." In the same Report, information is given
in regard to work done during the year in this department of
the survey, and it is stated that a " few geographical positions
had been determined in the vicinity of St. Louis, and others in
the States of Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky." Further on in the
same Report, mention is made of the determination of geodetic
points in New Hampshire, the triangulation being extended
from the coast across the State, in the direction of Lake Cham-
plain. A similar beginning was also made in the vicinity of
St. Louis. For the year 1872-73, the amount appropriated
by Congress for this interior geodetic work was $ 36,000, and
the same for the next year ; for 1874 - 75, and 1875 - 76, the
appropriation has been increased to $ 50,000. What has been .
accomplished up to the present time, as we learn from the Su- ¦
perintendent of the Coast Survey, is as follows : reconnaissances
preliminary to triangulation, from the Blue Ridge in Virginia
to the Ohio River ; through Southern Pennsylvania, and in the
same latitude in Missouri ; near Salt Lake, for a base-line site
and for points to extend triangulation east and west of that
site : triangulation commenced, east and west of St. Louis ; from
San Francisco, to cross the Sierra Nevada to the meridian of
Austin, Nevada, and from Monte Diablo up the Sacramento Val
ley to Mount Shasta. Geodetic work or preliminary reconnois-
sances have been or are in progress in sixteen States.
The highest geodetic problem of the Coast Survey, that of

35
working up the observations with a view to contributing to our
knowledge of the form and size of the earth, or, as it may be
technically expressed, in the words of the superintendent,
" finding the geometrical expression for a surface most nearly
in accord with the results of astronomical and other observa
tions, made in the progress of the primary triangulation," has
received attention, we are informed ; but nothing has as yet
been published in regard to it. Whether it will be possible for
the Coast Survey to keep up the high standard maintained
under Bache's superintendence, remains to be seen. It is
fervently to be desired that there shall be no falling off in
the execution of a work to which we have been in the habit of
looking for important scientific results, which we can hardly
expect to get in any other way than through its agency.
The survey of the Lakes, carried on by authority and under
the direction of the Department of War, the Coast Survey
being attached to the Department of the Treasury, appears
to have done its work well so far as the hydrography of
our great interior bodies of fresh water are concerned. The
work has, however, no great topographical importance, and it
ought, for a variety of reasons, to have been executed by the
Coast Survey, which, in extending its primary triangulation so
as to form a geodetic connection between the Atlantic and the
Pacific, might easily have crossed the continent in such a way
as to embrace the region of the Great Lakes.
If we have in the Coast Survey a work of which we have
some right to be proud, the system of the United States Land
Office Surveys, on the other hand, is- a very disagreeable subject
to handle, since it is marked by the most serious defects, both
of plan and execution. Little is known of these matters by
the inhabitants of the older States; but in the West the terms
" township," " range," and " section " are familiar as house
hold words.
The United States is the owner (nominally at least) of an
immense area of land, which has to be surveyed after some
fashion before it can be sold or even given away. The Mex
ican government tried the experiment of giving away land,
without defining its boundaries by survey, in California, before
that region became United States territory, and the conse-

36
quence is, that many of the original grantees have been unable
to maintain themselves against conflicting claimants, and have
lost everything, while multitudes of lawyers have fattened on
the spoils, and an amount of fraud has been perpetrated which
fairly exceeds belief.
If one looks at an old map of our country, as it was before
the Revolutionary War, it will be seen that the States are
divided off from each other on the Atlantic shore and for a
little way into the interior, but without any defined boundary
to the west. Some States had, as they supposed, claims
through to the Pacific Ocean ; others extended indefinitely
back into the wilderness, so far that the western part was
beyond the reach of anybody : that was enough. When
Cambridge was laid out, a route for a road was surveyed back
into the wilderness for a distance of six miles ; that was about
as far, they calculated, as civilization would be likely to extend.
Of course, when things were so indefinite, there must eventu
ally be a good many conflicting claims. Connecticut, for
instance, could not be extended to the Pacific without cross
ing over New York ; so at length, after much discussion,
the different States, responding to the appeals of the Rev
olutionary Congress, New York taking the lead, surren
dered their claims to the general government. The United
States held no land in any of the original thirteen
States, except what was bought for public uses. Vermont
was claimed by New Hampshire and New York, but was
admitted to the Union as an independent State in 1791.
Maine, previously claimed and governed by Massachusetts,
was admitted in 1820. Kentucky and Tennessee also came
into the Union without giving up any of their lands to the
United States ; but all the rest of our domain east of the Mis
sissippi, forming the Republic as it existed in 1783, belonged
to the general government, and comprehended altogether
about 350,000 square miles. By additions since made, namely,
by treaty with England, purchase from France, helping our
selves to valuable land belonging to Mexico, and paying her
afterwards for worthless, our territory was multiplied seven
fold in area, making seventeen times as much as Prussia had
before she commenced the last war, — and not including

87
our last doubtful purchase, Alaska. Not counting that trifling
acquisition of 582,000 square miles, we have, or did have, of
public land, 1,465,468,800 acres, as estimated, in 1866, at the
General Land Office, much of it worthless, and yet including
as fine a body of agricultural land as can be found in the
world. Nearly all of Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois has already
been sold or given away ; and, of course, a large quantity in
some of the other States has been disposed of, but a vast
amount still remains on hand, although our public lands have
been most lavishly given away by Congress, under every sort
of pretext. For instance, in lfc66, of 4,629,312 acres disposed
of, only 388,294 were actually sold ; the rest was all got rid of
in some way which certainly did not bring any immediate
returns of cash into the treasury. It is worth while, then, to
learn how this vast body of land is cut up, and its subdivis
ions so marked that the purchaser may know where the tract
to which he has acquired a title is located, — to use a convenient
American word, which first came into use in connection with
the public land surveys, and which meant originally the selecting
of some part of the public domain for a home. It is only after
a description of the Land Office system of surveys, that one can
form an idea of the geographical value of the work. The area
over which these surveys have been extended includes, of
course, only land belonging to the United States, as designated
above. In the Mississippi Valley and along the borders of the
Great Lakes, from Western New York nearly to the western
limits of Kansas and Nebraska, the country has almost all
been surveyed, and offered for sale or given to railroad and
other companies ; but farther west there remains still a vast
body of land into which the surveys have not been extended,
partly for want of time, and partly because the land is not
worth enough to make it reasonable to suppose that the
amount expended on the work would ever be got back from
its sale. Portions have therefore been selected, here and
there, and brought into market as required ; but there are no
large bodies of surveyed land west of the Rocky Mountains,
except in the Willamette and San Joaquin and Sacramento
valleys. The object of the United States land surveys is to cut the

38
land up into squares of one mile, which are called sections.
This is done by means of the simplest and least accurate
instruments, and such as require the least possible amount of
skill for their use. The direction of the lines is given by the
magnetic or surveyor's compass, and the distances measured
with the chain. There is no triangulation or any similar
accurate fixing of a net-work of connected points, by means
of which the accumulation of errors is held in check ; but
the general idea of the methods followed can be given in a few
words. If we suppose a line accurately run from south
towards the north, or in the opposite direction, all points on
that line will have the same longitude. Such a line is run,
theoretically, as the beginning of the survey of a certain dis
trict, which may embrace a part of a State, or portions of sev
eral adjacent ones. The line thus run is called a principal or
guide meridian. At right angles to this another line is traced,
and called the base line. From the two lines thus established
other lines are run and measured with compass and chain, by
which the ground is divided off into squares of six miles, called
" townships," and these again into subdivisions of one mile
square, called " sections," a section containing, " as near as
may be," 640 acres. In the centre of each section line a post
is set when the line is run, and this is called a " quarter-post,"
because it answers the purpose of indicating a division of the
section into quarters of 160 acres each. By an ingenious
system of notation, it is so contrived that any section of land
may be easily designated by reference to the number of the
meridian to which it belongs, and to its position east or west
of that meridian and north or south of the base line. That
this system is one very convenient for temporary use, in bring
ing the public lands into market with the greatest expedition
and at the least possible cost, is not to be denied ; but what
will be the future consequences of the adopting of a method so
inaccurate remains to be seen. We have only, at present, to
busy ourselves with the geographical material furnished by
these "surveys. In the first place, the entire unavailability of
the system for mountainous regions is to be noticed. The
lines cannot be run with a compass and measured with a chain
with even a rude approach to accuracy, except in a region

39
which is, at least, moderately level. This is shown by the
fact that the townships and sections, in the few cases where
the work has been carried into the mountains, have proved, on
examination, to be extremely irregular in shape ; and it is a
fact, that the surveys have been mainly confined to the level
strips of land between the ranges, throughout the whole of the
mountainous western portion of the country. The system
which answered tolerably for the flat or gently undulating
plains of the Mississippi Valley, has been found quite unavail
able for the Cordilleras. And, as no topography or hill-shad
ing is given on the plotted sheets of these surveys, no idea of
the physical structure of the regions they embrace can be
obtained from them, or any map constructed by putting them
together, except where the country is destitute of mountain
ranges* Of course, as the lines are only run so as to divide
the surface into squares of one mile each, all within those
squares is a blank, except in so far as it may be deemed rea
sonable to fill them up by arbitrarily connecting the objects
intersected on their borders.
In point of fact, the system of the Land Office Surveys is not
only unsatisfactory in itself, but the work has been, much of it,
very badly executed. We do not allude here to the defective
and even fraudulent character of portions of the less important
details, but to those prominent features, the principal merid
ians, by which the rest of the work is co-ordinated, and which
have first to be laid down on the map, whenever Land Office
material is to be used for geographical purposes. And it will,
we think, excite some surprise after reading in a report of the
Commissioner of the General Land Office, the head of this
department of the government business, that the guide merid
ians and standard parallels are " run, as nearly as human skill
can effect it, upon true meridians and parallels of latitude," * to
learn that, in truth, portions of these lines are miles away from
where they ought to be, in order that the above statement in
regard to the accuracy of the work should be true.f In order
- i
* See Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office for 1866, Part I.
page 8.
t Those who desire to investigate this matter will find it discussed in a chapter
¦of Foster and Whitney's Lake Superior Report, Part II., written by Charles
Whittlesey, and also in Warren's Memoir, referred to above.

40
that the Land Office work may be utilized at all on any map of
the United States which can lay claim to be accurate, the
longitudes of all the principal meridians will have to be care
fully determined at various points along their course by means
of the telegraph. This could be easily done, for the meridians
in the valley of the Mississippi, which pass, in good part at
least, through a thickly inhabited region, intersected by rail
roads and telegraphs, and of all the geographical work needed
at the present time in the country this is the most important.
And should the Coast Survey succeed in extending its trian
gulation across the country, its officers ought to be required to
connect their work with the Land Office Surveys, and to estab
lish permanent monuments at suitable points, which should be
most carefully protected by legislation, if it be possible in this
country to bring about so desirable a result.* •
When we come to inquire on what besides the Coast Sur
vey we have depended for the chartography of the eastern
Atlantic border, that is, what material has been used in the
construction of the maps in common use of the various States
from Maine to Georgia, the question is a difficult one to an
swer ; and it becomes a still more perplexing task when we
seek to learn what is the relative or absolute value of the
material thus used. Chain and compass surveys, either of the
towns, the counties, or the States, made for the purpose of
fixing their respective boundaries, constitute the principal
body of this material ; and it has been so long accumulating,
that it would be a most tedious and unsatisfactory matter to
search out the history of these fragmentary undertakings.
Indeed, this could only be done under the authority of the
various States, and with diligent investigation of their ar
chives. Discrepancies of several miles are believed, with good
reason, to exist in the boundaries of some of the States ; and
the recent re-examination of the line between two of them —

* There is something truly alarming in the thought that the lines of the United
States Land Office Surveys can never be run over again, or their location be re
established, after the marks by which the work is indicated on the surface have
been obliterated. And these marks are only small wooden posts, mounds of earth,
or " blazes " on trees, none of which can survive many years, while most of them
disappear very quickly, unless some one has a special motive for their preservation.

41
New York and New Jersey — has shown very clearly how full
of errors the old compass surveys were, even when best done.
The only States which have undertaken any systematic sur
veys, for the purpose of securing correct maps of their territory,
are New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, and in no
one of these instances has the result been satisfactory. New
Jersey made a very creditable beginning, having an excellent
basis in the Coast Survey triangulation, which, from the pecul
iar form of this State, extends over no small portion of its area.
The work, begun in 18.54, was carried on for two or three
years and then suspended, although a good deal of valuable
material was collected which was afterwards utilized in the
State geological map. A large amount of topographical work
was done in Pennsylvania, in connection with the State Geo
logical Survey, in the way of improving the map of that State ;
but there was no accurate triangulation made, neither was the
topographical map which was constructed ever laid before the
public, although it was used to some extent in the geological
atlas accompanying the final report by H. D. Rogers.
Massachusetts was, however, the first to institute what was
intended as a topographical survey, but which really turned
out to be only a triangulation, bearing the same relation to a
finished survey that a skeleton does to the living body. It
will be worth while to look a little more closely into this mat
ter, and to set forth the errors into which the Legislature fell
from entire ignorance of the subject. This ignorance was, per
haps, not so blameworthy forty-five years ago, but it would be
inexcusable for the State to enter on another work of this
kind, without more knowledge of what is needed, and of how
such a survey should be executed, than existed in this commu
nity when the former survey was instituted.*
In 1829 a committee was appointed by the Legislature of
Massachusetts to take into consideration the subject of " pro
curing such a map or such maps of the Commonwealth as the
public good requires " ; and in the following year this com-
* Yet at the very time tbe Massachusetts Survey was going on, Bessel and
Baeyer were doing the most exquisitely accurate geodetic work in Prussia, not
to speak of the Ordnance Surveys of England, France, and other European
countries.

42
mittee reported that " a good map, projected on a large scale,
from actual surveys," was much needed. The old map of the
State, made in 1801, "from authentic sources," and the sur
veys for which had been ordered by the Legislature in 1794,
was no longer sufficient. The idea of a topographical survey
and map seems to have been rather mixed up in the minds of
this committee with that of a census and gazetteer ; for in their
report they state that, as a new census of the United States
has to be made in 1830, as well as a new valuation of the
States, " a great mass of appropriate information could be
obtained free of expense." The committee did, however, see
the necessity of a survey " on trigonometrical principles," and
they thought that the work could be done " by some scientific
gentleman," in one season, with such assistance as would be
derived from information already on hand. If such a survey
could be made, another one would never be needed ; but it is
modestly added that " a small appropriation for this purpose
would be required." The idea was, that each town should
make its own chain and compass survey. " Such a survey
could be made by the selectmen," as the report has it, and
the material thus acquired was to be put together on trigono- ¦
metrical principles by the " scientific gentleman " employed
to superintend the work. The engraving and printing, it was
thought, could be paid for from the proceeds of the sale of
the map. The action of the Legislature was in accordance
with the above-cited recommendations of the committee ; an
appropriation of $ 2,000 was made to carry on the work, and
the towns and cities of the Commonwealth were required,
under a penalty for non-compliance of $ 100, to have minute
and accurate surveys of their respective territories made within
a year, and the State surveyor was to " project an accurate
skeleton plan of the State," which should " exhibit the ex
ternal lines thereof, and the most prominent objects within
those lines, and their locations."
The triangulation was mainly executed by Mr. Simeon Bor
den and completed in 1839, with a higher degree of accuracy
than was to have been expected under the circumstances, and
in a manner very creditable to Mr. Borden's ability and per
severance. The astronomical portion of the survey was under

43.
the direction of Mr. R. T. Paine, and small portable instruments
were employed, namely, the sextant, or reflecting circle,* and a
number of chronometers. The precise object for which these
astronomical observations were made, it is not easy to under
stand, as it is not likely that they were ever used in rectifying
the triangulation, which was of a higher order of accuracy than
the astronomical work. When, however, the chain and com
pass surveys, made by the selectmen or their agents, came to
be fitted into the main triangulation, — which should have
been supplemented by a secondary series of triangles, so as to
largely increase the number of points established, — there was
much trouble, as might have been expected. It was an at
tempt to reconcile data of a very uncertain character ; indeed
it was a most thankless job, and the result was not satisfac
tory, falling far behind what had been expected, although the
work had occupied thirteen or fourteen years, instead of the
one year it was expected to take when commenced. The map
as finished was on too small a scale — two and a half miles to
the inch — to be of much use as a town or county map, and
of course of no service as marking the lines or divisions be
tween the estates of private parties. It was also very defective
in respect to its exhibition of the character and relief of the
surface, this being an item in the requisites of a good map not
at all appreciated in this country at that time. A new edition
was issued some years afterwards, on which an attempt was
made to improve the hill-shading, which, however, was still
very unsatisfactory.
Maps of several of the counties and towns of Massachusetts
and New York, and probably of some other States, have from
time to time been prepared and issued by private parties, who
appear to have found the business profitable. The surveys for
the county work appear to have been made by driving over the
roads with an odometer attached to a wheel of the vehicle used,
thus determining the distances with some approach to accu
racy, while the pocket compass was probably chiefly relied on
for direction. The names of the occupants of the houses are
* The name of the instrument is not given in Mr. Paine's report of his opera-
lions ; it is simply called " a reflecting instrument."

44
given, and small plans of the principal towns figure on the
borders of these maps. Chartographic work of this kind is
very defective, especially in the way of hill-shading ; but it is
better than nothing at all ; and the fact that such maps can be
made and sold with profit indicates very clearly how strongly
the want of good ones is felt by the people. The books of city
maps furnished by private enterprise are more satisfactory than
the county maps, but still far from being complete, and they
especially lack the stamp of " official " upon them, so that they
cannot be used where permanency and the law are to be taken
into consideration.
From what has been said above, it will be readily gathered
that we have very poor local maps of the Eastern States, and no
good general one. One would suppose that the grand chain of
the Appalachians, situated as it is in the midst of a civilized
nation, would be well known to us even in the details of its
remarkable and beautiful physical structure. This, however, is
not the case ; and if it is no longer true, as Guydt said in 1861,
that it is " one of the chains of which we have the least amount of
positive knowledge," it is chiefly due to the persevering and uri-
remunerated labors of that distinguished geographer, during a
decade of years, that we have now even a general idea of the
character of this chain. Professor Guyot's investigations have
had reference rather to the previously entirely unknown alti
tudes of different portions of the Appalachian range than
to its structure ; what we know of the latter is more to be
gathered from his published verbal descriptions than from
the accompanying map, which is on so very small a scale
(1: 6,000,000) a&'to be, in fact, only a sketch.
Professor Lesley, who was the principal topographical assist
ant on the first geological survey of Pennsylvania, has also
interested himself much in regard to the structure of the Appa
lachians, and even prepared a large map intended to illustrate
the peculiar features of different portions of the range ; this
was, however, never published, although a part of it was photo-
lithographed, as an illustration of a paper in which the typical
topographic forms of this remarkable chain were discussed.
The deficiency of our knowledge of Appalachian topography
may be, in part, excused, it is true, by the difficulty of survey-

45
ing an intricate region of ridges of nearly uniform elevation,
and densely covered with forests, which impede the vision, and
thus render it impossible to work with rapidity ; but the real
trouble is, that the people have not yet been educated up to the
point of fully appreciating the scientific interest as well as the
practical value of accurate geographical and topographical
work. Mention should be made of the fact, that, during the War
of the Rebellion, a considerable amount of topographical mate
rial was obtained, through the assistance of the Coast Survey
chiefly, in parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and other
States which were then the seat of war. The need of the kind
of information which only an accurate and detailed survey can
give was keenly felt at the time our armies were moving over
the terra incognita of the western slopes of the Appalachians,
and it was hoped that the impetus given to this kind of work
at that time would continue to be felt after the war was ended,
and that the result would be, that under the lead of the older
and richer States, the work of mapping the Atlantic border
of the continent would be seriously taken in hand. Nothing
has been done, however, and we remain apparently very much
in the same condition as to geographical progress that we
were in ten years ago. This is the case, at least, with regard
to action on the part of individual States ; but the United
States has taken several steps in advance, some of them very
curious ones, as will be seen further on.
The United States Engineer Bureau has received from Con
gress large sums of money for many years back, nominally for
'• surveys for military defences." A considerable portion of
this has been used for the topographical reconnoissances
referred to on previous pages, and for many other similar and
less important ones. The total amount thus expended it
would be quite impossible for one outside of the bureau to
state ; but it must have been very large, probably not less
than $100,000 a year, on the average. Previous to 1867 no
system of surveys had been inaugurated, and but little if any
work done of a permanently valuable character. The deter
minations of distances were almost exclusively dependent on
estimates of the pace of the horse or mule ridden, and the

4G
astronomical observations by which the work was checked
were extremely unreliable. This is well illustrated by ref
erence to Lieutenant Simpson's work in the Great Basin. His
longitude of Genoa, one of his three principal astronomical
" stations, where a series of observations of lunar culminations
was made, appears now from the telegraphic determination of
the position of the 120th meridian by the Coast Survey, to
have been over eight miles out of the way. And in further
illustration of this, .it may be stated, that on comparison and'
reduction to one scale of all the work done in the Great Basin
by the United States Engineer officers, previous to 1867, by
the writer of this article, it was found that no portion of it
could be used for a general map of Nevada even on a small scale ;
indeed, the discrepancies of longitude and vagueness of the
topography were so great on all the published maps of the War
Department and Engineer Bureau, that no one chain of moun
tains, between the Sierra Nevada and the Wahsatch, could be
identified as being the same with any range on the carefully
surveyed map of Butler Ives, spoken of above, and which proved,
on repetition of the work by the Fortieth Parallel Survey, to be
remarkably accurate in its general delineations of the moun
tain masses, although in part deficient in detail.
In 1867 the Fortieth Parallel Survey was instituted by
Congress, and the work placed nominally under the direction
of the Bureau of Engineers, but in reality given to a civilian,
Mr. Clarence King, who had as his principal topographical J
assistant Mr. J. T. Gardner, both of these gentlemen having
been previously connected with the Geological Survey of Cali
fornia. Under Mr. King's direction, a belt of country over a
hundred miles wide and extending from the western borders
of Nevada to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains was
topographically and geologically surveyed with a much higher
degree of precision than had ever before been attained in that
region. The whole area was carefully triangulated, and the ;
work checked by accurate telegraphic determinations of lon
gitude at suitable points, as well as frequent observations for
latitude with the zenith telescope. For the geographical map,
which is comprised in ten sheets, on a scale of four miles to an
inch, the hill-shading has been carefully and beautifully ox-

47
ecuted with the brush, and copied in crayon-work on stone.
The geological work will be exhibited on contoured sheets, the
curves being drawn at vertical distances of four hundred feet.
Thus picturesque effect is combined with accurate delineation
of the vertical element, so far as is practicable on the small
scale necessarily adopted in the survey of so vast a region.
This work is nearly ready for publication.
The success of the Fortieth Parallel Survey and the gen
erally recognized value of the work led the Department of the
Interior to inquire whether they also could not do something
in the way of more accurate topography on the western side
of the continent. A geological survey had been going on for
some time, in the Territories of the United States, and under
control of the Secretary of the Interior, but having no connec
tion with the General Land Office, which is another branch of
that department. This geological work, having no geograph
ical basis, was of little value, except as a rough preliminary
reconnoissance. To remedy this difficulty, it was proposed, in
1870, that a topographical corps be added to the geological,
and, the sanction of Congress having been obtained, this was
done. The remodelled survey was then known as the " United
States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories,"
and the topographical portion of the work was placed in charge
of Mr. Gardner, the principal triangulation of the Fortieth Par
allel Survey having at that time just been completed. For the
continuation of this work Congress has made liberal appropri
ations at the two last sessions, $ 95,000 having been granted
for the present year. The work thus far has been mainly con
fined to Colorado, and a map of that recently admitted State,
in six sheets, is said to be in preparation. It is in the area
which lies between the meridians of 104° and 110° and is in
cluded between the parallels of 36° and 39°, that the survey is
to be prosecuted during the season of 1875. This embraces
Southern and Southwestern Colorado and the northern part of
New Mexico. Of the scale or style adopted for publication, in
this work no information has been receiyed. A preliminary
sketch showing the progress of the triangulation in Centfal
Colorado, on a scale of eight miles to the inch, is appended to
the report of progress for 1873; and„£i description of the

48
method adopted for measuring the base line, and of the sys
tem pursued in the triangulation, is also addedi From what
has been published it may be inferred that this work will not
fall short of that of the Fortieth Parallel Survey in accuracy,
and that it will be of a much higher grade than any of the
previous reconnoissance maps of the United States Engineer
Bureau, in the region west of the Rocky Mountains.
Mention should here be made of a survey of the Colorado
River, which has been going on for about five years, first under
the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, and afterwards
under that of the Smithsonian Institution. This survey, which
is in charge of a civilian, Mr. Powell, had cost, up to the end
of June, .1874, about $62,000, and a liberal appropriation
was made in addition by the last Congress for its completion.
From Mr. Powell's statement, submitted last year to a com
mittee of Congress, it appears that an area of 45,000 square
miles of territory about the head and along the course of the
Colorado River had been explored and surveyed by his party.
This region is au exceedingly difficult one to map, being much
cut up with deep gorges and canons, and very dry, as well as
distant from any practicable base of supplies. It is understood
that this survey has been in part based upon a triangulation ;
but nothing has been published as yet from which any opinion
can be had with reference to the style and accuracy of the
work. It was probably admiration of Mr. Powell's pluck and
endurance, as manifested in his at first almost unaided ex
ploration of the canon of the Colorado, which led Congress
to encourage and adopt the work, rather than a knowledge
of his having had any scientific training or peculiar fitness to
be at the head of a topographical or geological survey.
The two surveys just spoken of, as will be evident, are du
plicates of each other, since to a certain extent there does not
appear to be any limit fixed to either of them by Congress
so that they shall be prevented from overlapping. The term
"survey of the Territories " is, of course, an unmeaning one,
since that which was a Territory to day may be a State to
morrow. Thus Colorado, in which most of the topographical
work under Mr. Gardner's direction has thus far been done,
is now within the Union, although only a Territory when the

49
survey was begun. A survey of the Colorado River might,
on the other hand, without any impropriety, be made to
cover all or nearly all of Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Wyo
ming, siuce all these are largely drained by the Colorado and
its tributaries. Thus we have two independent geological and
geographical surveys over an area of not much less than a quar
ter of a million of square miles west of the crest of the Rocky
Mountains, and it will be noticed that these are both under the
control of the Secretary of the Interior, one of them directly
and the other indirectly, yet both supported by special grants
fi'om Congress. This may appear to be a singular arrange
ment ; but the reader will be surprised to learn that a third
geological and geographical survey of the same area is also in
progress, under the direction of the Engineer Bureau of the
Department of War. This work is usually known as " Wheel
er's Survey," having been in charge of a United States en
gineer officer of that name. It was begun in 1869, and last
year the first number of an atlas was issued which gives an
idea of the general plan and execution of the work.
According to an outline sketch in the atlas, the whole re
gion west of the one hundredth meridian is to be represented
on ninety-four sheets, each eighteen by fifteen inches in size,
and on a scale of eight miles to an inch (1 : 506,880) ; of these
four are given in the first number, and these cover very much
the same ground which is intended to be embraced in Mr.
Powell's map. Thus far the field-work of Wheeler's Survey
has been almost exclusively carried on in the same region in
which Messrs. Powell and Gardner have been employed, and
it is evident that this has not been done without design. It
has been, and probably still is, the wish of the Engineer Bureau
to put a stop to all topographical work done in the region west
of the one hundredth meridian, except such as may be under
their own direction. It has been for the purpose of forcing
this issue, that the region in question has been divided off as
mentioned, and that particular region selected for exploration
which others were already engaged in mapping. Indeed, the
matter has already been up before a committee of Congress,
and a very unpleasant altercation had between the officers and
employees of the War Department on one side and of the In-
4

50
terior on the other.* Those who wish to investigate the sub
ject can find material for doing so in the documents to which
reference is made in the foot-note. In point of fact, no good
has been accomplished by the Congressional investigation ; the
work is still going on exactly as before. Instead of a careful
and systematic consolidation of all the United States geograph
ical and geological work, in the Far West, under one super
vision, in one department, there is just that method employed
which leads to bad results and great waste of money. Con
gress is at this moment paying to have the same work done,
on the same ground, by two, if not three, different parties, and
in two different departments. At the investigation referred
to above, the influence of the most eminent scientific men
throughout the country was exerted in favor of the continu
ance of the geographical surveys begun by Mr. Gardner under
the direction of the Secretary of the Interior. This was done
because, as was clearly shown before the committee, the four
maps issued by the Engineer Bureau, as a first instalment of
the " Geographical Explorations and Surveys West of the One-
hundredth Meridian " were so defective and so far inferior to
the work of the " Fortieth Parallel Survey," that it seemed in
conceivable that, when the public attention was called to the
fact, the poorer work should not be stopped and the better
allowed to proceed. Instead of this, liberal appropriations were
made for both classes by Congress, this year as well as the last,
and how long this condition of things will be allowed to con
tinue no one can foresee. To those who, like the writer of
this article, earnestly desire to see the geography and geology
of the Far West carefully and economically worked out, and
who know what a tedious and costly job it must be, even when
most economically and conscientiously carried on, the present
state of things is indeed disheartening. It shows, perhaps as
well as anything can, the defects of our system of managing
public affairs, if system that can be called which has no other
basis than the whim of a Congressional committee, or the tact
and persistency of some individual who has a private object to
gain, and who for this purpose seeks a position for which he is
neither fitted by education nor by natural gifts.
# See House Report, No. 612, 43d Congress, first session ; also Senate Report,
No. 311, same session, and House Executive Document, No. 240.

51
It is something for which to be thankful that the opposition
of the Engineer Bureau has not succeeded in wiping out the
appropriations made for the extension of the Coast Survey tri
angulation through the interior. And yet the amount given
for this purpose, thus far, is hardly more than a nominal
one. Even if the whole sum were confined in its expenditure
to a single State, it would not be more than enough to push
the main triangulation in that one with even a moderate degree
of rapidity. This may easily be inferred from the fact that,
although the Coast Survey has been going on for about twenty-
five years on the Pacific side of the continent, the main tri
angulation along the coast line, forming the basis of the hydrog
raphy, is very far from being finished ; one would say from a
glance at the progress-sketch published in the Report for 1870,
that it was not by any means half done, and this, of course,
without including Alaska. Yet the amount appropriated for
the work on that coast seems to have been quite large, since it
was, for the year 1870-71, $200,000, while .$275,000 was
asked for its continuance in 1871-72.
We have thus reviewed the sources of chartographic infor
mation in the United States at the present time, and endeav
ored to show, to the best of our ability within the limited space
available, what has been done and what is now doing in the
way of gathering the materials for the complete elucidation of
the geography of this vast country. We have next to turn
our attention to surveys which are designated as, " geological,"
and to show what their object is, and what progress they have
made in different parts of the world, and especially within our
own borders. We shall then be prepared to discuss, somewhat
more in detail than has yet been done, the character of the
topographical and geological work needed by that one of the
United States which is most densely populated and wealthiest
in proportion to its area. In doing this we shall have occasion
to examine and criticise the official report presented to the
Legislature in November last by the committee appointed " to
inquire into the expediency of a new survey of Massachusetts."

52

II. GEOLOGICAL.

In a previous article we have discussed the subject of Geo
graphical Surveys, and now turn to those which are known by
the term " Geological." Our object, at present, is, to explain
why geological surveys have been instituted in different parts
of the world, and by all, or nearly all, civilized states ; then to
show, in a general way, what has been accomplished by them
in other countries, and also, and more particularly, in our own.
We shall then be prepared to consider what is needed, in a
State like Massachusetts, in the way of geographical and geo
logical work, in order that the public interests may be best
cared for, and the claim which our people generally make, that
they have a right to take a high rank among civilized commu
nities, be justified, in that which concerns a thorough knowl
edge of their territory and the development of its resources.
And, to arrive at a satisfactory result, it will be desirable, in
the first place, not so much to explain what geology is, as to
show what the economical bearings of the science are, and how
it connects itself with the material welfare and progress of the
State ; and, with this object in view, the relations of different
governments to the mining interest will be set forth, although
necessarily in a very concise way, since a full development of
the subject, demanding not less than a whole volume, would
be quite out of place here. That geological surveys are in
some way expected to be of great value to the community is
evident from the fact that they have been extended over so
large a portion of the most enlightened countries ; and that
important results have been attained may also be taken for
granted, because these surveys are constantly gaining in ex-.
tent and in the scope and magnitude of the work undertaken.
And yet., in this country at least, it is very doubtful whether
more than a small number of the people really have any just
appreciation of the nature of the operations of a thorough geo
logical survey, while it is certain that there are but few per
sons who have sufficient knowledge of the subject and confi
dence in the value of the work done to be able to use it as it

53
ought to be used, in order that a full return for the outlay in
curred may be obtained.
All know, more or less definitely, something of what the
science of geology is ; and that while the geographer has to
do with the surface of the earth, the geologist has not only to
look at the surface, but also to endeavor to ascertain what
is beneath it. Geography is one of the plainest and most
straightforward of sciences. The mapping of the earth's' sur
face, or the .exhibiting on paper of its physical features, and
the delineation of its artificial subdivisions, are tasks of great
ease and simplicity. Work it is, to be sure, which demands
time and patience, and which requires the expenditure of a
great deal of money, where accuracy is desired : but there is
nothing of theory or hypothesis about it. When, however, we
enter the domain of physical geography, or that more general
form of the subject which has for its object the investigation
of the laws governing the system of physical movements which
take place upon the surface of the earth, we find ourselves in
presence of a much more difficult task. The majestic sweep
of the oceanic currents, the disturbances of the atmospheric
equilibrium, the theory of the tides, — these and kindred sub
jects demand, not only prolonged and accurate observations,
but the»aid of the highest mathematical analysis ; and we may
feel assured that many years will elapse before all the prob
lems presented to the investigator in this department will be
solved. It is where physical geography ends that geology be
gins ; and, as we go backward in time and endeavor to ascer
tain how the great dynamic agencies now moulding the earth's
surface worked in the earlier epochs of its existence, we follow
a road which is continually becoming blinder and more
difficult. Indeed, it has been, and often is, made a matter of reproach
to geologists that their science is one in which hypotheses and
theories predominate over facts; and it is especially urged
against it, that it does not furnish numerical results — that its
fancies are many and its figures few. This is, indeed, true,
and yet geology has done more than any other science to cor
rect the former erroneous ideas of men in regard to the length
of time during which the earth itself, and man upon its sur-

54
face, have been in existence. The results of geological inves
tigation, although not capable of being put into figures, are as
grand as any with which astronomy has furnished us ; and
that which the latter science has done to enlarge our concep
tions of the extent of space cannot be considered as having
had any more powerful influence on the intellectual develop
ment of mankind than have the revelations of geology in
regard to the immensity of time required to allow for the
occurrence of that complicated series of changes which the
study of the earth's surface, and such of its interior as is
accessible to us, has shown to have taken place. It is true
that the temptation to theorize and speculate, on a basis of
small knowledge, may justly be charged against many who
would consider that their claims to be called workers in
geological science are beyond dispute. It is true also that for
centuries geology consisted of little or nothing except specu
lations, many of which were wild and fanciful ; but the last
half-century has seen an immense change in this respect. Fol
lowing the lead of the Geological Society of London, the really
earnest workers in this line of research have accumulated a
body of facts which it is already extremely difficult for any
one man to handle. The Transactions and Proceedings of the
various important societies exclusively devoted to geology form
a library of no insignificant size ; and the reports of the vari
ous official and government surveys fill a goodly length of
shelving in one's library. Indeed, if geology has its imagina
tive and poetic side, it has another one of quite the opposite
character. Let one examine, for instance, the bulky royal-
octavo volume of the English Geological Survey, devoted
chiefly to the details of sections of wells about London, and be
will find that figures do there most abound. What can be
more matter-of-fact than a sheet of coal-mine sections, in
which, in a series of hundreds of alternations of beds of shales,
grits, and coal, the thickness of each particular stratum is
given with accuracy, as well as the minutest details of the
peculiarities of its lithological structure ! And these data,
which are not obtained without much labor, but which look so
unattractive to those not specially interested, may be of the
greatest importance to persons mining or owning property in

55
the region where the sections in question have been prepared ;
and they may be studied with the closest attention, and with
results bearing directly on the welfare of the people, when
placed in the proper hands.
The difference between geology and astronomy may be
illustrated by comparison between the study of the phenomena
of an eclipse and an earthquake, both of them events which
in ancient times struck terror into the hearts of the multitude ;
although in the case of the eclipse the feeling could have been
one of unreasoning apprehension only, while the earthquake
was known to have been often highly destructive in its effects,
and therefore with reason to be dreaded. Now, the exact time
of the occurrence of the next eclipse can be given with pre
cision, because it depends on one simple law, always the same
in its action, so that the motions and positions of the heavenly
bodies can be ascertained by the aid of mathematical analysis
for any future, as well as for any past epoch. The phenomena
of the earthquake, on the other hand, depend on several
causes which are not regularly recurrent in their action, and
which in their mutual play acquire a degree of complexity
which puts it quite out of our power to say at what particular
epoch the tension of the erust will have reached such an
amount, at any particular spot, that a seismic disturbance or
earthquake will take place. After the shock has occurred, a
great deal of important information can sometimes, if the
conditions are favorable, be obtained as to the depth at which
the shock originated, the way in which the vibration was prop
agated, and the manner in which its effects were made evident
upon the surface. Looking at the matter from a general point
of view, it can be shown what regions are most liable to severe
disturbances, and the architect and engineer can be cautioned as
to the necessity of planning their constructions so as to offer
the greatest amount of resistance to the devastating agency.
Thus interesting and important scientific as well as practical
results are obtained, a portion of which are given approxi
mately in figures ; while by means of the combination of a
great number of observations — which may perhaps have to be
continued for centuries — we may at length arrive, not to that
point where we shall be able to predict the time of the occur-

56
rence of earthquakes (which would, from some points of view,
be a misfortune), but rather to a complete understanding of
the causes of these terrible catastrophes, and of the best
methods of providing against their effects;
It is chiefly through its intimate connection with the art of
mining and the development of the mineral resources of the
country, that geology has acquired the importance which it
now has, and especially in its relation to the state. But little
has ever been done by any government to encourage scientific
research where there was not some pretty direct practical
result to be attained. It is only within the most recent times
that the fostering of investigations made for the purpose of ex
tending the boundaries of science, and not with an eye to any
immediate practical application, has begun to be recognized as
a duty. It is true, however, that in some branches of science
— notably in astronomy — governments have been led to do
a great deal for abstract science and to pay liberally for work
which could, at present at least, only be seen to be very remotely
connected with the material progress of the people. But this
has only been by fits and starts, just as the right string in
the popular mind happened to have been struck, or when the
sentiment of international rivalry had been called into play.
Thus England, after many years of the most profound indiffer
ence to Arctic discovery, suddenly awoke to the idea that this
line of inquiry was of the greatest importance : the brilliancy
of the achievements of the Germans and the Americans could
not but be admitted, and must be surpassed. Thus, too,
in the observations of the recent transit of Venus, where it
would be difficult to demonstrate that the results would have
any other than an exceedingly remote practical; value, all the
European nations vied with each other as to which should send
forth the most thoroughly equipped band of Observers. It
was generally admitted everywhere that this was the proper
thing to do. But when Gilliss went to South America and
established an observatory for the purpose of determining the
distance of the sun by observations on Mars, hardly an ob
servatory could be found in the world willing to go a little
out of its regular routine for the purpose of making the neces
sary corresponding observations ; and not a government lifted

57
its finger in help, even when the expense incurred would have
been absolutely insignificant, as compared with that of the
late Venus expeditions. Again, that the patronage bestowed
by governments on scientific research is fitful in the extreme
may be illustrated by the indifference of the Ministry and the
people in England to the deep boring now going on for the
purpose of settling some points in geology bearing, not so
very remotely, on questions of the highest commercial impor
tance to the country. There is, in this case, not that imme
diate brilliant result to be attained which happens to fall in
with the dominant fancies of the people ; in short, that kind
of thing is not exactly in fashion at the present moment.
In the matter of the encouragement of science through the
means of geological surveys the governments of Europe have,
almost without exception, shown themselves far-sighted and
liberal in their expenditures ; but it is the practical which
has been aimed at, and the scientific results have been had,
into the bargain, without "having been at all looked forward to
as a part of the quid pro quo. Indeed, the way in which geo
logical surveys have come into being in Europe is something
not at all a simple matter as it is with us ; but they have
resulted, in most cases more or less indirectly, from the con
nection of the governments with the mining interests, — a
connection which dates back to before the time when geologi
cal science had any existence.
If the phenomena of coal deposits, as well as of iron to
some extent, are comparatively very simple and only require
care and accuracy for their setting forth, so that capital may
have a solid basis of fact on which to rest, this is far from being
the case with most of the occurrences of the metalliferous ores.
Metal mining is proverbially uncertain, and in proportion as it
is uncertain, so it is attractive. Nature has stored away in the
bowels of the earth many great prizes and a prodigious num
ber of blanks ; and human nature is such that there are few
things about which it is accustomed to get more excited than
in regard to occurrences of metalliferous indications, especially
those of the metals styled precious. No one who has not had
practical experience of these matters can realize how much
energy and time have been used up in foolish mining enter-

58
prises, especially on the western side of our continent, and
how much fraud and rascality have been mixed up with the
development of our metallic wealth. It is safe to say that, for
years, half the resources of the State of California were wasted
in profitless and foolish " prospecting," or preliminary attempts
at mining; and it is 'a well-known fact that several times in
its earlier history that State was completely demoralized by
the "rush "* — thus wild and senseless migrations of bodies
of miners from one mining region to another are termed — of
a large portion of its male population to some new El Dorado,
where many of them left their starved bodies, while the rest
came back in poverty and rags.
It is partly owing to this peculiar tendency of men to waste
ful and heedless squandering of time and money where mining
matters are concerned, that the civilized European governments
have, from time immemorial, taken this department of industry
under their special charge. But there is another important
element to be taken into consideration in this connection : this
is, the sovereign right of the state to the metallic treasures
buried beneath the surface.
At the present time, the object of governments in interfering
with mining matters is chiefly to prevent foolish and extrav
agant expenditures and a wasting of the resources of the
country ; the idea of the divine right of the sovereign to the
metals — precious or base — found beneath the surface has, to
all intents and purposes, been abandoned by the enlightened
states of Europe. But this has not been brought about with
out hundreds of years of struggles and contest, in which popes,
emperors, princes, and the people have all played their parts.
In this country no such complications have ever arisen. The
individual States have never attempted to exercise any sover
eign right over the treasures buried beneath the surface as dis
tinct from the soil itself. The general government, as the
actual owner of the soil over a large part of the country, as
already shown, has had full control of all that exists upon or
beneath it ; and whenever Congress has done anything in refer-
* See " Mining in the Pacific States of North America," by J. S Hittell, San
Francisco, 1861, p. 29, et seq., for a description of the Frazer River " rush " in 1858,
as a specimen.

59
ence to the sale of the mineral lands of the country, it has been
because the United States was the exclusive owner of the
ground, and not because there was any question of exercising
the rights formerly claimed by sovereigns over the minerals
and ores discovered within their territories. To undertake to
show how and by what complicated series of steps the different
states of Europe have been brought to their present stand-point
in regard to mining matters would occupy far too much space
in this connection. It need only be stated, in a few words, that
it has been brought about because governments have become
more enlightened, and because sounder ideas of political econ
omy are now prevailing. It is seen to be for the best interest
of the state that mining should be as little hampered as possi
ble ; that people who are willing to risk their capital in this
way should be encouraged under wise restrictions to go on ;
that the owners of the soil should not have it in their power to
obstruct others who are willing to incur the risks which they
themselves decline. And yet it is fully recognized that men
must be guided by the light of science in their expenditures,
and be restrained, as far as possible, from wasting their own
money, and more especially from wantonly destroying the
wealth existing beneath the surface. For every mineral deposit
is of limited extent, and it is the state's interest that no more
than is necessary should be lost in the working. A mine may
be so unskilfully handled as to make it necessary that it should
be abandoned long before it is exhausted, thus, to all intents
and purposes, annihilating, so far as the public use is concerned,
a portion of its contents ; or the ores taken from it may be waste-
fully treated in the processes of dressing and smelting which
they have to undergo in order to obtain the metal from them.
Here is a source of immense waste, against which it is the duty
of the state to guard. For the metallic wealth included within
the bosom of old mother Earth is not like the riches which her
surface so bountifully provides. Forests will in time spring
up again to replace those which have been recklessly removed ;
exhausted soils may be made to recover their fertility ; but the
contents of a mineral vein or deposit are there once for all, and
if wasted in their removal the loss can never be repaired.
To understand something of the present position of the prin-

60
cipal European states with reference to mining and geological
work, it will be well to examine into what France, Germany,
and England are doing in the way of encouraging and protect
ing the development of their mineral resources, by wise laws
regulating the working of mines, facilities afforded for the
highest instruction in this department, and minutely accurate
surveys of their territories. And we may begin with France,
a country where there are few important mineral deposits, ex
cept those of coal and iron ; while these are usually of such a
character as to make their working difficult and expensive, so
that the help of scientific control has been of great value, partly
in checking foolish expenditures, and partly by directing work
in progress, so that the best results might be attained, and the
element of uncertainty eliminated, so far as this was possible.
In France, the Corps des Mines was established in 1781 ; and,
about the same time, the Fcole des Mines. This mining school
was first an elementary one ; it afterwards underwent several
modifications, and finally became an institution into which a
small number of the graduates of the Fcole Polytechnique and
those standing highest could be admitted as " eleves inge-*-
nieurs," and a few more as " eleves externes," on passing the
necessary examinations. The " eleves ingenieurs " are; to all
intents and purposes, government officers ; but they can only
be promoted to the rank of " ing^nieur des mines," and be
charged with the duties of that position, after passing through
the course of the Ecole des Mines.
The Polytechnic School is a government institution, the
object of which is to give students an opportunity of receiving
a thorough mathematical training, as preparatory to admission
to various branches of the public service, and especially such
as call for this kind of preparation for their successful pursuit.
These branches are the artillery, the engineer corps, the hy-
drographical corps, the mining corps, the corps of roads and
bridges, the general staff, the telegraphic service, the manufac
ture of powder, and the management of the government monop
oly of tobacco. The course of the Polytechnic School lasts two
years ; and the pupils, on finishing it, designate the branch of
the public service to which they wish to be admitted, and are
appointed, as vacancies occur, in the order of the rank with

61
which they are graduated after the final examinations have
been passed. From an inspection of, the records, for some
years back, it would appear that the students who stand high
est are inclined, in a considerable majority of cases, to select
the mining corps in preference to any other department of the
service. The instruction in the Polytechnic School is not
exclusively mathematical, although this class of studies largely
predominates. Physics, chemistry, German, and drawing are
among the other subjects taught. The " eleves ingenieurs,"
after two or three years at the Ecole des Mines, on passing the
required examinations, become "ingenieurs des mines," and
are immediately employed in the government service, the nature
of their work being exceedingly varied and important, since they
have to represent and advise the government in all matters con
nected with the concession and working of mines and quarries,
as well as the building and management of railroads and steam
motive-power in general. The scientific investigations of the
" ingenieurs des mines " are given to the world in a periodical
forming two thick octavo volumes a year, and published continu
ously since 1794, first as the " Journal des Mines," and, since
1816, as the " Annales des Mines," the whole forming a series
of volumes replete with valuable information relating to mines
and railroads, not only in France but throughout the world.
The mining statistics are published in a separate work of quarto
size, issued once every six or seven years. In these volumes
the most minute details of the yield of all the mines in France
are given, with a great deal of additional information in regard
to the commercial, aspects of the mining and mineral interests.
For instance, a diagram map is issued, on which, at a glance,
can be seen exactly whence each district derives its supply of
coal ; or, if. obtained from more than one source, then the pro
portionate amount from each region of supply is indicated, so
that the facts can be clearly and easily made out by simple
inspection. Under the French law, all excavations for metallic ores,
mineral substances, or building materials are divided into
three classes, — mines, minieres, and carrieres, or mines proper,
mineral deposits worked by surface excavations, or such as are
open to the daylight, and quarries. No mine can be opened or

62
worked without a government concession, and then only under
the strictest supervision on the part of -'the proper authorities.
The proprietor of the surface can open and work a quarry on
his own land, without any special interference on the part of
the state, except so far as may be necessary to secure the
safety and health of his workmen and his neighbors. A sur
face deposit, worked in a miniere,- may be opened and utilized
by the proprietor of the soil, if he sees fit to do so ; and, if
not, he cannot prevent other properly qualified persons from
occupying the premises for that purpose, security being given
for the payment of such damages as may accrue. A mine,
that is, a deposit of ore which has to be worked by under
ground excavations, cannot be utilized, even by the owner of
the soil, without a concession from the government ; so that,
for all practical intents and purposes, the ownership of ores
lying deep beneath the surface is entirely separated from the
ownership of the surface itself.
Thus we see that the French government has entire control
of the mining interests ; that it supports a School of Mining,
and takes great pains to have the men' who go to it educated
in the most thorough manner, giving them a five-years' course,
selecting them by competitive examination at the beginning,
and only allowing them to pass from the general to the special
school of science on proof of extraordinary diligence in their
studies. We see, also, that careful record is kept of every
thing that is done towards the development of the mining
interests, both from a scientific and a commercial point of
view ; that the statistics of mining are published in full, as
well as a great deal of scientific material connected with the
exploration and working of the metalliferous ores and of all
other economically valuable substances obtained by quarrying
or mining.
One of the duties of the French Mining Engineers has
been, from the time of the institution of the corps, the exami
nation of the geological structure of the country, with a view
to the development of its mineral resources. The first attempt
at what would now be designated as a geological survey was in
1811. At that time, Brochant de Villiers, professor of geology
in the Ecole des Mines, presented to the government a plan for

63
making a geological map of the French Empire ; but, in the
troublous times which followed, the work came to naught. In
1822, the subject was taken up again, the immediate incitement
thereto being the publication of Greenough's Geological Map of
England ; and, in 1825, the work was commenced, the gentle
men intrusted with it, all professors in the mining school, hav
ing been allowed a year for travelling in England and preparing
themselves by the study of the geology of that country. The
result of this survey was a map, with accompanying text, pub
lished in 1840, after more than ten years of labor. It was on
a scale of 1 : 500,000, in six sheets, which, when put together,
made a square of a little over six feet ; it was by far the finest
work of the kind which had, up to that time, been executed.
In 1868, the importance of maps on a large scale, on which
details could be given, having become fully recognized, the
work was taken up again, and this time on a scale of 1 : 80,000.
One of the peculiar features of the new map is this : that the
explanatory text is so prepared that it can be attached to the
different sheets as they are issued, either laterally or else by
pasting on the back when the sheet is mounted on cloth. Thus
map and illustrative text will always be together and ready for
use. No less than 1,113 different symbols are used on this
map for the purpose of designating every variety of mineral
occurrence which can possibly be of economical importance ;
these symbols are used in addition to the usual geological col
ors, by which the range and extent of the different groups of
strata, under their scientific names, are given. There are also
sheets of vertical and horizontal sections, on various scales, to
suit the nature of the locality, as well as photographic views.
The course of the Prussian government in reference to min
ing matters, although differing in some details, is, on the whole,
very similar to that of France. The new Prussian mining law
dates back to 1866 only ; previous to that, the government had
for centuries been working itself from darkness towards light,
as knowledge became more generally diffused and correcter
ideas of political economy began to prevail. Mining is of very
ancient origin in Germany, and a large number of our own
mining terms have come to us from that country through Corn
wall. And there was, for hundreds of years, a triangular con-

64
test going on there between the sovereigns, the princes, and
the people in regard to the rights and privileges of the miner.
Many things were done in those early days which would seem
strange to us if we had not our own Congress to look to for a
parallel. For instance, we find at one time that it was forbid
den to increase the number qf coal-mines, lest the expense of
so many deep workings should raise the price of the combusti
ble ! However, it will not be possible to go back to the past
and trace the progress of more liberal ideas finally culminating
in the present law, which places things on an entirely satisfac
tory basis. As in France, property in the minerals is distinct
from property in the soil. The state makes no claim except
to regulate, and receives only a very small proportion of the
produce of the mine as a return for the necessary expenses of
oversight. Any one can "prospect," or obtain a concession
to work a mine, on any one's land, by taking proper steps and
paying for the damages. The government, as in France, has
a Mining Corps, a school where men are trained to the profes
sion, and takes care that nothing shall be done which shall
tend to. cripple or waste the resources of the country. A quar
terly journal is published, with a folio atlas of plates, in which
the statistics of all the mines in the empire are given with ac-.
curacy and in the greatest detail, and all important improve
ments in mining and smelting discussed. This publication, as
a whole, stands at the head of what is now doing in this line,'
the French " Annales des Mines " having decidedly fallen off
in value within the past few years. A great part of the Prus
sian territory has, from time to time, been geologically mapped,
under authority of the government, and a bureau of geological
surveys, the " Landesanstalt," is now fully organized, and the
publication of a series of maps on a scale of 1 : 25,000 has been
commenced. An immense impetus has been given to the min
eral industry of Prussia by borings and other explorations made
under the directions of the state, and which have resulted in
important discoveries leading to the establishment of entirely
new branches of manufacture, based on the occurrence of eco
nomically valuable mineral substances existing in immense
quantities, but which lie far beneath the surface, and would
never .liave been discovered had it not been for the costly un-

65
derground researches made in accordance with the indications
furnished by a study of the geological structure of the country.
In no country has the economical value of this kind of scientific
work been more clearly demonstrated than in Prussia ; and it
may be mentioned in this connection, that it is there that the
earth has been penetrated by boring to the greatest depth yet
reached by man, namely, a little over 4,300 feet.
In Great Britain the relations of the government to the min
ing interest are much less direct than on the Continent, and are,
in the main, limited to police regulations, having for their object
the safety of the men employed and the limitation of the hours
of labor for women and children. England and Scotland are
countries, however, where mining is a business of immense
importance, as will be easily understood when it is mentioned
that the make of iron amounts to 7,000,000 tons, -and the
product of coal to 125,000,000 tons per annum. And in the
mining and smelting of the ores of lead, copper, zinc, and tin,
England has a vast amount of capital employed. And as Great
Britain stands, first and foremost of all countries in the magni
tude of her metallic and mineral developments, so the govern
ment has, especially within the past quarter of a century, been
very active in promoting a scientific investigation of these in
terests, and in putting them on a substantial basis of accurate
knowledge. The geological survey of the United Kingdom began, in con
nection with the ordnance survey, by the employment of De la
Beche to make an investigation of the important mining dis
trict of Cornwall and Devon. This was in 1835, and his report
was published four years later. Soon the value of the work
became apparent, and a separate organization was determined
on for the geological survey, which has ever since been carried
on with activity. The collections of the survey increased rapidly
in importance and interest, and in 1851 the magnificent build
ing in Jermyn Street, in which these collections were deposited,
was opened to the public. Here, too, a mining school was estab
lished on a liberal scale, so that the Survey, the Museum of
Practical Geology, and the Mining School are all parts of one
harmonious whole. The work of the survey is carried on at
the same time in England, Scotland, and Ireland by corps in a
5

66
measure independent of each other, but all under one director-
general in London. The publications are already very numer
ous, comprising geological maps, sections, and printed volumes,
all made with the most scrupulous accuracy, and on a very
large scale. The ordinary sheets are on the one-inch scale ;
the coal-fields are laid down on the scale of six inches to a
mile. While the cost of an entire set of the publications of the
survey is necessarily, very large, any one may have a geological
map of a region in which he may be specially interested, and
the necessary descriptive and illustrative text, for a few shillings.
The statistics of the produce of all the mines, as well as detailed
plans of the same, are kept at the Mining Record Office, and a
full abstract of them published every year.
When we turn to inquire what has been done and is now
doing in .our own country in the way of developing our mining
interests, by geological surveys, mining schools, and the like,
we have, in the first place, to distinguish between State and
United States authority ; and we will first notice the relations
of our general government to mines, mineral lands, and min
ing education and development.
The United States being now, or having been, as has already
been set forth in the first part of this article, the owner of most
of the territory outside of the older States, that is, of nine
tenths of the whole country, has had, of course, the right to
control the mining interests, and either to sell or lease any
portion of its territory ; although that the government has had
the power, was perhaps not quite so clear. The first action of
Congress seems to have been in 1807, when the government
lead-bearing lands in the Mississippi Valley were ordered to be
reserved from sale, and the granting of leases was authorized.
None, however, were actually issued until 1822 ; and but a
small quantity of lead was raised previous to 1826, from which
time the production of this metal began to increase rapidly.
For a few years the rents demanded by the government were
collected with tolerable regularity ; but soon large amounts of
mineral land began to be fraudulently taken up as agricultu
ral ; and, the miners refusing to make any further payments
of rent, the government was quite unable to force them to do
so. It was therefore, in 1847, found necessary to do away with

67
the leasing, and to allow the lead-bearing lands to be sold,
since they had been a source of constant embarrassment and
of no profit while the leasing system was in force. Exactly
the same thing was done in the Lake Superior country, after
the lands lying to the south of that lake had been ceded by the
Chippeways. The copper-bearing ranges, and a great deal of
barren country besides, were covered with leases obtained from
the War Department, each of which included at first tracts of
nine square miles, and afterwards of one. This issue of leases,
however, was suspended in 1846, as being illegal ; and in 1847
Congress passed an Act authorizing the sale of the lands,
regardless of whether mineral or not ; and a geological survey
was authorized at the same time, for the purpose of designating
what tracts should be sold as mineral land, the price of this •
being fixed at double that of the agricultural.
A problem of much greater magnitude came up for solu
tion when it was discovered that a large portion of the remote
and, as it was supposed, desolate region west of the Rocky
Mountains contained more or less of the precious, as well as of
other, metals ; while over an area of considerable extent the
amount of gold to be had by means of entirely unskilled labor
was quite unprecedentedly large. A commissioner was sent
to California to report on the matter, — a politician, of course,
— and he enlightened the world with curious theories as to the
origin of the gold in the detritus, but could afford little help
to the government in reference to the way in which a small
percentage of the gold which was being carried off from the
public lands at the rate of sixty or seventy millions a year
should find its way into the treasury of the country. It was
quite plain, however, to most persons, that nothing could be
done, except to wait until conditions changed, or the gold was
all carried off. The miners were a too powerful body to be
interfered with; and if an»army had been sent to California to
coerce them into paying, the soldiers would themselves have
turned miners, thus only increasing the difficulty. The let-
alone policy was therefore strictly adhered to, and for nearly
twenty years after the first discovery of the gold by the Amer
icans nothing whatever was done either toward selling or
leasing the auriferous tracts, or regulating the ways and doings

68
of the miners thereon. The diggers, of all nations, occupied
the land as if it were their own. They made such rules and
regulations as suited themselves, — a new set for each new
district ; and when they disagreed they fought it out, with a
good deal of help from the lawyers, and occasional appeal to
the revolver or the Henry rifle as the least expensive .and most
satisfactory way of getting judgment. When, however, the
placer diggings began to be pretty much exhausted, portions
of the river-beds having been worked over as much, in some
instances, as a dozen times, and at each time with diminishing
profit ; when quartz and hydraulic mining, requiring persever
ance and a good deal of skilfully invested capital, came to be
the chief methods of mining ; and, especially, when it began to
be found desirable to dispose of mines of doubtful value to for
eign capitalists ; — then it gradually became apparent to mining
men that it would be convenient to have a title, and that a posi
tion from which one could not be ousted by force, nor by the
changing whims of a new body of occupants of the adjacent soil,
might be a desirable thing, even if a small sum had to be paid
to the United States in return for these advantages. Thus, at
last, after years of discussion, pro and con, and when the dis
covery of the silver-bearing veins of Nevada had quite thrown
the gold of California into the shade, making permanency of
occupation of the highest importance, Congress took up the
matter of the sale of the public mineral lands in the Pacific
States ; and, in 1866, almost twenty years after the first discov
ery of gold in California and the consequent rush of emigration
thither, an Act was passed entitled " An Act granting the
right of way to ditch and canal owners over the public lands,
and for other purposes," the " other purposes" being much the
most important ones, and including, among other things, pro
visions for the sale of the mineral lands. This Act was some
what amended in 1870 ; and, in 1872^, another one was passed,
entitled " An Act to promote the development of the mining
resources of the United States," modifying and repealing a
part of former laws on this subject, and leaving the matter
nearly in this form: "All valuable mineral deposits in lands
belonging to the United States, both surveyed and unsur-
veyed," are declared to be free and open to exploration and

69
purchase by citizens of the United States and those who have
declared their intention to become such, " under regulations
prescribed by law, and according to the local customs or rules
of miners, in the several mining districts, so far as the same
are applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the United
States." Mining claims, "upon veins or lodes of quartz or
other rock in place bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, lead, tin,
copper, or other valuable deposits heretofore located," shall be
governed as to length along the vein or lode " by the customs,
regulations, and laws in force' at the date of their location."
But any claim made after the passage of this Act must not
exceed 1,500 feet in length on the lode, or 300 feet in width,
neither shall it be less than 25 feet in width on each side of
the middle of the vein. All persons already holding claims
are confirmed in possession of them ; but their sides are limited
by vertical planes; that is, the idea of "square claims" is
maintained, and not the old Spanish custom of regulating the
inclinations of the sides of the location to correspond with the
dip of the lode. This is a most beneficial provision, and its
enforcement by law years ago would have saved millions
squandered in litigation ; the " honest miner" having been
very much inclined, if he had lost his vein, to endeavor to get
hold of another, under the pretence that it was one of the
"spurs, dips, or angles" of his own, — to use the jargon in
which the notices of mining claims have always been written,
excepting in the very few districts where " square claims "
have been adopted by the miners. Provision is also made for
enabling any miner to purchase and procure a patent for his
claim, on paying for its survey, and at the rate of five dollars
an acre for the land. In case of adverse claimants to the same
piece of ground, the question of right has to be settled " by a
court of competent jurisdiction." The miner, however, need
not purchase, unless he sees fit to do so. The United States
will not in any case molest him in his occupancy of the ground.
This is not the place to go into any discussion of the crudities
of the law in question, which bears all the marks of having
been drawn up by lawyers with an eye to their own business,
rather than to the good of the miner or of the country in gen
eral : certainly no competent mining-engineers could have been

70
consulted in its preparation. By a subsequent Act, passed in
1873, "vacant coal-lands" are allowed to be entered at the
price of ten dollars per acre, " if more than fifteen miles from a
railroad, and twenty dollars if within that distance." The
amount which may be so entered is limited to 160 acres for
each person applying, or 320 in case of an " association of per
sons." Those actually in possession of coal-mines which they
have opened and worked have the preference in making the
entry, and may purchase an amount of land not exceeding 640
acres, provided as much as $5,000 has been expended on the
development of the property.
In regard to the collection of mining statistics, something
has been attempted to be done by the government, but with
little success, since there are no laws requiring owners of
mines to keep any record of their operations, or to furnish such,
if kept, to a government official. The census mining returns,'
gathered every ten years, have sometimes been amusing from
their absurdities, never of any value as statistics, except per
haps in the case of the census of 1870, with reference to the
production of coal and iron.* To illustrate the utter worth-
lessness of our government mining statistics still further, it
may be added that the "commissioner of mining statistics"
reported, as the gold and silver product of the year 1870, the
sum of $61,500,000; the census returns of the same year
give as the value of the " gold and silver mining product,"
$26,452,652. Everybody posted in mining statistics knows
that they are of little or no value, unless the sources from
which they are obtained are under constant and efficient con
trol by men of honesty and intelligence. In this country esti
mates of the amounts of the metals produced are simply
guesses, which are valuable in proportion as the guesser has
skill in weighing against each other and combining a great
many facts bearing indirectly on the problem to be solved.
* The superintendent of the census of 1860 estimated the amount of iron pro
duced in the United States at 98 pounds for each man, woman, and child. To
arrive at this result he added the total production of manufactured iron to that of
the crude pig frqm which the manufactured was almost exclusively produced, — a
proceeding exactly similar to what it would be if, to ascertain the weight per head
of bread consumed in any town, one were to add the weight of the flour sold to
that of the bread produced in order to arrive at the total to be divided by the num
ber of persons.

71
The establishment of a national mining school, under the
control of some one of the departments at Washington, has
been repeatedly advocated, and bills have been introduced in
Congress with that end in view. As our government does not
attempt in any way to interfere with or control the mining in
terest, it is difficult to see why a mining school should be sup
ported by the nation, any more than a school of law or den
tistry. The graduates of such a school would stand no more
chance of employment than would those of any other institu
tion. It is extremely desirable that our mines should be
worked with skill and economy; but the establishment of a
national mining school would not have the slightest effect in
bringing about the wished-for result. It is very desirable that
Congress should pass laws regulating the sale of the mineral
lands in a manner consistent with the well-established princi
ples of political economy, and that a sound knowledge of geol
ogy and mining should form the basis of those laws. But if
the most accomplished and the most honest mining engineers
in the country were to offer their gratuitous services to the
authorities at Washington for the purpose of helping to draw
up the necessary laws, they would simply be laughed at for
their pains.
It must not be supposed, however, that because the general
government has wretchedly mismanaged the mineral lands be
longing to the public domain, that our mining resources have
not been rapidly and extensively developed. Our produce of
iron is enormous, second only to that of Great Britain : the
increase in the amount of coal mined is rapid, and indicates
the steady expansion of our manufacturing interests. The
gold of California has been washed from the surface detritus
with feverish haste ; and now the silver-mines of Nevada are
the scene of the most extensive mining operations the world
has ever seen. Nature has been prodigal in her gifts to our
people ; and we have been and are, perhaps, not more wasteful
of our mineral than of our agricultural resources. The future
will show how haste has made waste ; but there is not the
slightest reason to expect any change at present. As the de
velopment of the great permanent mineral interests, those of
coal and iron, is chiefly in the older States, where the gen-

72
eral governinerit has no claim to interfere, having no owner
ship in the land, we may expect to see the individual States,
at no very distant period, making necessary and desirable reg
ulations for the health and safety of the miners and. the people
living in the neighborhood of underground workings ; and
economy, the result of skilful management, will come into
fashion when the country has been forced into it, — a process
which, as some think, has already commenced. A thorough
knowledge of the geological structure of the country will form
a sound basis on which the economical development of its min
eral resources, may rest ; and of what has been done in this
direction by United States and State authority we may now
proceed to furnish a sketch.
The first step in geological science in this country dates
back as far as 1807, when William Maclure, quite unaided
and alone, commenced the exploration of the structure of the
Appalachian chain, and the region lying between that range
and the Atlantic coast. This was before William Smith's
Geological Map of England had been issued ; but this pioneer
in the science had already, seventeen years before, given to
the world his " Tabular View of the British Strata," in which,
for the first time, any part of the series of fossiliferous rocks,
which make up so large a portion of the visible crust of the
earth, had been arranged in the order of their formation.
The Geological Society of London had just been founded, and
the science of- geology had suddenly begun to exist, and to
command attention among educated men throughout Europe.
Unfortunately the rocks of which the order of superposition
was first worked out in England were quite different in geo
logical age from those which largely predominate on the
Atlantic slope and in the Valley of the Mississippi. Had
this been otherwise, had the Silurian and Devonian forma
tions, which cover so large a part of our own territory, been
equally important and well defined in England, the task set
before the earlier explorers here would have been much sim
plified. As it was, they had to wait for thirty years before
Sedgwick and' Murchison solved the difficulties presented by
the Palaeozoic system in Wales and on its borders, and gave
our geologists the material for comparing their results with

73
those which had been obtained elsewhere. It was no wonder
then that Maclure found himself involved in a maze of diffi
culties : the work he had undertaken was far too comprehen
sive for any one man to accomplish. His geological map,
however, did roughly indicate the character of the formations
over an extensive area ; and, considering the circumstances, it
may be said with truth that this first step was one which
should be remembered as a worthy beginning of American
geology. An " American Geological Society " was formed in
1818, under the leadership of Maclure, although its existence
was but short-lived ; and the same was the case with the
" Pennsylvania Geological Society," which was originated in
1832. The "Mineralogical Journal" of Dr. Bruce, also of
brief duration, and the " American Journal of Science," estab
lished by Professor Silliman in 1818, which has held out up
to the present time, were indications of incipient activity in
the direction of mineralogical and geological research. Amos
Eaton was the first person in this country to make what we
should now call a " geological survey," that is, a detailed ex
amination of some special district, with a view to the elucida
tion of its geological structure and mineral resources. This
survey was of the route of the Erie Canal ; it was paid for by
Stephen Van Rensselaer, and the results published in 1824.
Here again the same difficulty presented itself which met
Maclure ; the rocks and fossils were unlike those best known
in England, and the puzzle was so complicated that one man,
in a short space of time, could do almost nothing towards its
unravelling. There was but little accomplished except to call
attention to some of the most prominent varieties of rocks,
without any attempt to find out much about the fossils they
contained, the science of palaeontology being then indeed in
its infancy. At the time when Eaton's work was done, the
mining and smelting of iron ores had already become of very
considerable importance, our yield of pig-metal reaching, in
the year 1830, 165,000 tons ; anthracite coal was beginning to
come into general use, the Lehigh region supplying the market
exclusively from 1820 to 1825, while the Schuylkill and Lack-
awana districts were opened between 1825 and 1830, when
the quantity mined had risen to nearly half a million tons per

74
annum. The smelting of lead was also just becoming a busi
ness of importance in the Mississippi Valley ; but there was
little else worthy of notice doing in the way of the develop
ment of our metalliferous resources. The discovery of gold
in the surface detritus had, however, created a great excite
ment throughout the Atlantic States from Virginia south ; and
no doubt this was one of the principal causes of the sudden
rise into prominence of geological and mineralogical studies
in this country, and of the starting of a large number of State
surveys just about this time.
A recognition of the science of geology by the general gov
ernment seems to have been first made by the appointment of
Mr. Featherstonhaugh, an Englishman, " to examine geologi
cally the Territory of Arkansas and the adjacent public lands,"
which, at that time, in 1834, namely, might be taken to mean
almost any part of the Mississippi Valley. This gentleman,
who took the title of " United States Geologist," examined the
country and published a geological section extending from the
Atlantic Ocean, through Illinois and Missouri, to Texas ; but his
printed report contains hardly anything of value. All the lime
stones of the West were grouped by him in one formation, which
he considered to be identical with the English carboniferous.
His work was but little, if at all, in advance of that of Eaton,
done ten years earlier, while the science had in that time made
great advances, especially in England.
In 1839, Congress passed a resolution requesting the Presi
dent to prepare " a plan for the sale of the public mineral
lands," and also to cause surveys to be made for the purpose
of getting information " relative to their location, value, pro
ductiveness, and occupancy." From the documents published
the next year, it would appear that no other mineral lands were
intended to be embraced in this inquiry than those of the Upper
Mississippi Valley. The idea of mining any farther west than
this was hardly dreamed of at that time. At least, it seems to
have been expected that the work of exploration would be com
pleted within three or four months, and Dr. D, D. Owen was
appointed "principal agent" for that purpose. His report,
made early in 1840, was limited to the lead region of Wiscon
sin, and contained the first approximate indication of the out-

lines of the geology of that State to the south of the river of
the same name, and also of Northeastern Iowa. At this time
considerable progress had been made in working out the geol
ogy of New York and Pennsylvania, and it was not difficult
to take a long step in advance of Mr. Featherstonhaugh ; so
that the rocks of the region in question were correctly referred
to the Silurian system, and the natural groups into which they
were divided were indicated with considerable accuracy.
A few years later, namely in 1847, the subject of the dispo
sition of the public mineral lands was again before Congress,
and this time with reference to the copper region of Lake Supe
rior, about which there was great excitement throughout the
country from 1844 on for several years. On this occasion
two new geological surveys were ordered, one of the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan, — the Lake Superior Land District, —
the other of the Chippeway Land District, embracing an exten
sive area in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. The results of
both these surveys, accompanied by maps on which the tracts
designated as mineral lands were indicated, were published in
1850 - 52, and were much more elaborate in their character
than anything which had been previously done in this way by
the general government. The geological formations were
marked out and classified, over that extensive area, essentially
in the way in which they now are, later surveys having made
but few additions except of details. The great extent and value
of the iron region of Lake Superior were then, for the first
time, made known. These surveys did not, however, as has
been shown already, lead to any general plan for the disposi
tion or the care of the mineral lands. It was not until nearly
twenty years later that this was attempted.
After the discovery of the gold of California, which happened
just about the time that' the Lake Superior speculations, or the
" copper fever," as it was generally called, had . subsided into
comparative quietude, the attention of the government began
to be more and more called in the direction of a West, a long
distance farther off than what had been previously known as the
" Far West." When the importance of the mining interests
of California had been demonstrated, — and this needed but a
brief space of time, the yield of gold rising almost immedi-

76
ately to figures entirely unparalleled in the world's history, —
it might naturally have been expected that Congress would set
on foot a careful reconnoissance of the region west of the Rocky
Mountains, a region of a million of square miles nearly, abso
lutely unknown, so far as its geology and mineral resources
were concerned, but which, judging from what, had long been
known of Mexico, of whose Cordilleras ours were evidently the
continuation, might be expected to be pre-eminently the mining
region of the country. Nothing of the kind was done. Our leg
islators seemed entirely unable to grapple with any of the prob
lems presented in that exceptional region. Each of the Pacific
Railroad surveying parties, as already mentioned,, was accom
panied by one or more persons whose duty it was to collect in all
departments of natural history, and to study the geological struc
ture of the regions traversed. Owing to the inexperience of
most of the observers, and the rapidity with which the vast area
was explored, almost nothing was accomplished in the way of
throwing light on the mineral resources of the country west of
the Rocky Mountains. Hardly one of the important problems
presented in the field of general geology was solved. What
was done was almost exclusively along the Pacific coast, the
Rocky Mountain ranges and the great interior basin between
them and the Sierra Nevada having been quite neglected.
Hence it was, that up to the time of the commencement of
the California State survey, no evidence had been obtained
with regard to the age of the auriferous rocks of the California
gold region ; neither had it been discovered that the rocks
about San Francisco were of Cretaceous age ; and the very
existence of this member of the series was quite unsuspected,
although it forms the main body of the Coast Ranges, from
Monterey north, and also occurs in large isolated areas on the.
flanks of the Sierra. Moreover, there was nothing known of
the geological position of the high gravels worked for gold by
the hydraulic process ; nor had anything been discovered in
regard to the occurrence of the Alpine Trias over a vast area
in Western Nevada, a group of rocks extending from Mexico
to Alaska, and replete with that peculiar assemblage of or
ganic forms which has attracted so much attention in Europe.
Indeed, nothing had been made out about either the geological

77
age or the structure of any part of the Great Basin beyond what
the collections made by Fremont had revealed. And in the
Rocky Mountains proper, — the eastern edge of the Cordilleras,
— all was entirely a terra incognita so far as its structure and
the nature of its fossiliferous groups were concerned.
Our knowledge of the geology of the " Great Northwest," as
the vast region of the Upper Missouri at the base of the Rocky
Mountains may be called, has been developed gradually, begin
ning with the days of Lewis and Clarke. These pioneer ex
plorers brought back with them fossils enough to enable
Morton to determine the existence of the Cretaceous series in
that region, and twenty-five years later Prince Maximilian of
Neuwied obtained additional evidence of the same fact ; and
again, in 1839, Mr. Nicollet acquired some information with
regard to the magnitude of the area over which these rocks
extended. The first knowledge of the wonderful Tertiary fau
na of the region of the so-called " Bad Lands " — the Mauvaises
Terres of White River — was obtained by means of a bone sent
in 1847 from one of the posts of the St. Louis Fur Trading
Company to Dr. H. C. Prout of that city. The region was
explored, ten years later, by one of Dr. D. D. Owen's assist
ants, who was then engaged in the survey of the Chippeway
Land District, as before noticed. The fossils thus obtained,
and those afterwards brought from that region by Mr. Culbert-
son, and other collectors, were described by Dr. Leidy, and
proved to be of the greatest interest.
In 1853 two gentlemen visited the Mauvaises Terres, whose
names are identified with the progress of geology in the North
west, namely, the indefatigable explorer, Dr. F. V. Hayden, and
the eminent palaeontologist, Mr. F. B. Meek. This expedition,
which was made at the expense of Professor James Hall, laid
the foundation of our knowledge of the geological structure of
that region ; and almost the whole of what we now know of the
geology of the Rocky Mountains is based on the work carried
on or superintended by Dr. Hayden, almost uninterruptedly
since 1853, and during most of the time under the authority
of the Department of War or of the Interior at Washington.
Those who are acquainted with the progress of American geol
ogy will not need to have it stated that the value of Dr. Hay-

78
den's work has been greatly increased by the thoroughly trust
worthy and conscientious manner in which his extensive- col
lections of fossils have been worked up, not only, and chiefly,
by Mr. Meek, but also by Messrs. Leidy and Lesquereux. Dr.
Hayden accompanied the expeditions of General Warren and
General Raynolds, to which allusion has already been made,
and in which the region of the Upper Missouri and the Yellow
stone was reconnoitred. These explorations were followed
by the appropriation by Congress of a small unexpended bal
ance, made originally for defraying the expenses of legislation
in Nebraska, for the purposes of a geological survey of that
Territory. Under that authority Dr. Hayden was appointed
United States Geologist in 1867; and the appropriation was
renewed the next year, with directions that the survey should
be extended into Wyoming, and, if time permitted, as far as
the South Park in Colorado. The work thus begun became
first the " United States Geological Survey of the Territories,"
and later, as already mentioned, the " Geographical and Geo
logical Survey of the Territories." Under this organization,
the geological corps being reinforced by a topographical one,
the work has gained greatly in scope and value, the appropria
tion having been liberally increased in amount ; so that, if the
organization could be made a permanent one, and not be, as it
is, absolutely dependent on the whim of each successive Con
gress, we should have reason to look forward to a most satis
factory working up of the topography and general geology of
the Cordilleras. Some geological work has been done in con
nection with Major Powell's survey of. the Colorado, and the
Wheeler Survey, under the United States Engineer Bureau, to
which allusion has already been made ; but nothing of impor
tance has yet been published by either corps, so that no judg
ment can be formed in regard to the method or value of the
work. The remarks made in reference to the manner in which
the Departments of War and the Interior are duplicating each
other's topographical work applies equally to the geological.
The last volume of Hayden's Survey — the Annual Report of
the explorations of the year 1873 — shows a gratifying advance
over the preceding ones, in respect to the real value and accu
racy of the geological material it contains.

79
The geological results of the " Fortieth Parallel Survey," in
charge of Mr. Clarence King, are not yet published ; but it
is understood that one or more volumes are well advanced
towards completion, and that they will soon be issued. We
confidently expect to find in them a very large amount of new
material of great importance, as throwing light on the struc
ture of an extensive area, which Mr. King, with the large
means put at his disposal by Congress, and the aid of an excel
lent corps of assistants, has had a fine opportunity to work out
in considerable detail. The volume of " Mining Industry,"
published three years ago, and chiefly devoted to the detailed
description of the most important mineral vein in the world,
— the Comstock lode, — is a superb piece of work, and far in
advance of anything previously done in this country in the
same line, and we know of nothing published in Europe supe
rior to it. And it should not be forgotten that the high char
acter of the work done by the Fortieth Parallel Survey was the
cause of a great advance in the methods and aims of the other
surveys which have their' headquarters at Washington. This
was especially the case with regard to Dr. Hayden's work,
with which Mr. King's chief topographer, Mr. Gardner, and
some of his assistants, became connected, thus rendering it
probable that some degree of uniformity would be maintained
in the extension of the topographical surveys which from that
time forward became an essential part of what was previously
only the " United States Geological Survey of the Territories " ;
that is, a geological survey without any geographical basis.
Of the various geological surveys instituted during the past
fifty years by the individual States, it will not be possible to
speak in detail. But this can be said, in regard to them all,
that they are only reconnoissances. There is not one which
rises to the standard of the European surveys, or which is based
on an accurate geographical map. Neither has any such sur
vey been made as can be looked on as a finality, or which is so
considered by the people. For instance, not one of the coal-
bearing States has carried its survey to such an extent of
accuracy as is necessary in order that the quantity of this all-
important material existing within its borders may be known
even approximately. In no State has the economical value of

80
its metalliferous ores been satisfactorily worked out. Neither
is there one in which the character and distribution of the
soils and superficial detritus have been made a subject of careful
study, as has been done in Holland and is now doing in Prus
sia. The reasons for this condition of things may be dis
cussed after a brief sketch of the development of these surveys
in the different States has been given.
As it is generally stated that North Carolina was the first
of the States, to conceive the, idea of having its mineral re
sources investigated at the public expense, it may be well to
state that the idea originated (in 1821) with a Connecticut
schoolmaster, Denison Olmsted, who was then acting as Pro
fessor of Chemistry in the University at Chapel Hill ; and it
may also be mentioned that the — not overpowering — sum
demanded for the work, namely one hundred dollars, was
never received from the State treasury ; so that the credit, if
there be any, must be fairly set down as belonging to Con
necticut rather than to North Carolina. The report itself was
as creditable a one as could have been expected under the cir
cumstances. Considerable information was collected in regard
to the occurrence and value of the ores, minerals, and rocks
of the State. The Deep River coal-field and the sandstones
accompanying it were described, and referred pretty nearly to
their true place in the geological series.
Something similar was attempted about the same time in
South Carolina, but the results were never published, except
in the form of communications to the newspapers. The geol
ogist employed, Lardner Vanuxem, a native of Philadelphia,
was — so far as is known to the writer — the first American
educated abroad to the profession of mining engineer; and
his scientific training stood him in good stead, a few years
later, when he took charge of one of the districts into which
the State of New York was divided, for the purposes of a
geological survey. At this time the number of persons in the
United States who had received what we should now call a sci
entific education must have been exceedingly small. There was
no institution in the country where anything more than the
rudiments of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology was taught ;
and it appears that there were only two or three persons,

81
among all the earlier State geologists, who had had the oppor
tunity of pursuing these studies in Europe, so that the first
business of most of them, on entering upon their respective
fields of labor, must have been to teach themselves.
Massachusetts was, in point of fact, the first State to inau
gurate a geological survey, the beginning of the topographical
work already mentioned having been very soon followed by the
appointment, as State Geologist, of Rev. Edward Hitchcock,
a gentleman who had become known through various papers
in the " American Journal of Science " relating to the geology
of the Connecticut River Valley. This appointment was made
in 1830, and the work went on, with some stoppages, for about
ten years. What was at first intended as a final report was
published in 1833 ; but a re-examination of the State was then
ordered, and the completed work was issued, in two quarto
volumes, in 1841. This was followed by a long series of pub
lications, issued by the various States, the volumes having
succeeded each other rapidly, until now quite a library of
them has accumulated. Between 1833 and 1836 nearly every
one of the Eastern and Middle, and several of the Western,
States commenced their geological surveys, — first Tennessee,
then Maryland, followed by New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsyl
vania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, and several of the
smaller States. In few of these cases did the work go on to
what was, even then, considered a satisfactory completion ; in
most instances it was stopped after one or more annual reports
had been made. New Jersey was for a time satisfied with
Professor H. D. Rogers's final report, published in 1840 ; but
the work has, since then, been several times taken up, and now
the geological survey seems to have become a fixed institution
in the State. The present State Geologist, Professor G. H.
Cook, has annually, every year since 1868, made a brief report
on some special subject of economical importance to the people.
The earlier surveys of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan,
Virginia, and Tennessee, in fact of all the large States except
New York and Pennsylvania, were abandoned, and before any
thing like a complete reconnoissance had been made. In all
these States,' however, with the exception of Virginia, the
abandoned surveys have been taken up again, and in some
6

82
cases there have been several renewals and stoppages of the
work. Of all the earlier State surveys, those of New York and
Pennsylvania were the only ones which became of considerable.
importance, and really contributed in a marked degree to in
fluence the development of geological science in this country.
These surveys were both begun in 1836, that of Pennsylvania
being strictly limited to geology ; while in New York several
branches of natural history, as well as agriculture, were to
be made the subjects of special reports. New York is a State
of large area, rich agriculturally, and having great manufac
turing resources. For her coal, however* she has to depend
on her neighbors in the South and West, as she has, herself, no
workable deposits of that invaluable material. Mining is of
very secondary importance in New York, as the only metallif
erous ores which have been hitherto worked with profit are
those of iron. The manufacture of salt from the brines obtained
by boring in the central part of the State has, however, long
been an important branch of industry. Hence the economical
aspects of the geological survey were of secondary importance,
and the particular interest attaching to the work was due to
the fact that here the sequence of the geological formationsj
from the base of the Carboniferous down to the very bottom of
the fossiliferous rocks, including the Devonian and the Upper
and Lower Silurian, was first completely worked out in this
country, and the fossils characteristic of each group and sub
group, figured and described. And since these Palaeozoic rocks
of New York extend far and wide over the Valley of the Missis
sippi, : — as far as Lake Superior on the north j and to Iowa and
Missouri in the south and west, — the volumes of the " Palaeon
tology of New York," by Professor James Hall, which have
been issued from time to time since 1847, have been the indis
pensable guide to our Western geologists, as they have gradually
extended the area of their investigations over the interior of
the continent. The sequence of the different groups was
easily made out in New York, because there they lie conform
ably on each other, without having been much moved from their .
original position. In New England, on the other hand, rocks
of the same geological age as those of New York cover a

83
large portion of the surface ; but, instead of remaining nearly
as they were deposited, they are broken, turned up on edge,
and folded, the fossils they once contained having been almost
entirely obliterated, and their very inmost structure changed
by chemical agencies acting under the influence of heat and
pressure. Thus, while all was plain and easy to decipher on the
west of the Hudson, on the other side all was doubt and diffi
culty, so far, at least, as the geological age and position of the
strata were concerned. Under these circumstances it has only
been by slow degrees, and chiefly by comparison of results at
tained on our northern borders by the Canada survey, and
also, from time to time, by discoveries of little patches of rocks
in which the fossils have not become ' entirely obliterated, that
the outlines of New England geology have been made out ;
and this has been almost entirely accomplished since the pub
lication of Dr. Hitchcock's Final Report.
Although the Pennsylvania survey was begun in 1836, noth
ing was published, excepting a few meagre annual reports,
issued in the first years of the work, until the year 1858, when
the Final Report, in three quarto volumes, was given to the
world. The engraving and printing of these were done in
Scotland, and in a style of great perfection and elegance. But
the publication of the results of this survey had been so long
delayed that a portion of its value was lost. The nomencla
ture proposed for the different groups of the palaeozoic series
never was adopted, that of the New York survey having
already become familiar to American geologists ; and as no
attempt was made to work up the palaeontology, except so far
as the plants of the carboniferous series were concerned, these
beautiful volumes can only be said to have had a local impor
tance, being especially valuable for their details of the coal-
bearing rocks, in regard to which a great amount of detailed
information was laid before the public. More than any State
in the Union, Pennsylvania needs an exhaustive geological sur
vey, based on a thoroughly accurate geographical one. Her coal
and iron deposits are on such a scale of magnitude, and of
such vast commercial importance, that it is safe to say that the
time will surely come when this will be recognized, and the
people will demand a style of work equal to that of the best

84
European surveys. Quite recently, after nearly twenty years
of repose, the work of a geological examination of this State
has, indeed, been taken up again. It does not appear, how
ever, that this new work is to be based on and preceded by an
accurate trigonometrical survey. Unless we are misinformed,
it is, on the contrary, to be limited to three years in dura
tion ; and already a final report on one important object of
investigation, petroleum, is spoken of as being ready for de
livery, although it has not come into the hands of the writer.
It is safe to say, therefore, that Pennsylvania will yet demand
a higher class of work, and it may be that this will become
evident to the people, while the present survey is in progress,
so that this may be allowed to develop itself until it reaches
the desired degree of completeness ; if not, the work will
surely be resumed at some future time ; while the loss thus
incurred, by putting off until some distant day the thorough
investigation of the resources of the State, although not appre
ciated by the present generation, will become very evident
when the people have become educated up to a proper under
standing of these matters. The attempt to supply an accurate
map of a small area of the anthracite region, made by private
parties, is well as far as it goes ; but private surveys can never
carry that weight which public ones do, neither can they by
any possibility reach the requisite degree of precision, unless
limited to a very narrow area.
Virginia, which is also a State presenting a most attrac
tive field to the geologist, — and in making this statement we
may include both Virginia proper and West Virginia, — has
done nothing in the way of a survey during the last thirty-five
years. The detailed study of its topographic and geological
structure would be a work of great interest, and could hardly
fail to be at once remunerative to the State. Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, and Kentucky, four States which have large areas of
coal-bearing land within their borders, and which also possess
great agricultural resources, all have surveys in progress,
which are more or less continuations of work begun forty years
ago and taken up and dropped, in some instances, several
times, and under different heads. In Ohio and Illinois the
publication of what appear to be intended as Final Reports is

85
drawing to a close, — the field-work, as it seems, having
been finished. In Illinois five large volumes have been issued,
which form a worthy supplement to the Palaeontology of New
York, being chiefly interesting from their contents in this de
partment. Valuable material of the same kind is found in the
two published volumes of the Ohio Survey, and a large amount
of detail in regard to the coal and iron resources of the State.
To thoroughly work out the questions of economical interest
which are offered by the great States of the Mississippi Valley
will be a very serious undertaking. The surface throughout
this part of the country is everywhere only moderately undu
lating ; but the streams — which are very numerous — have
cut themselves valleys which vary considerably in depth and
width, in different sections. This erosion of the river-valleys,
taken together with the general irregular wearing away of the
surface by atmospheric causes, and the action, over a portion
of the region, of the northern drift currents, have given rise
to a kind of topography which requires a very minutely detailed
study if the geology is to be laid down with accuracy. And,
as the coal-measures often lie quite near the surface, it will be
easily understood that the amount of denudation which has
taken place becomes a very important element in arriving at a
knowledge of their extent and value. The time will come
when this detailed work will have to be done ; but it is perhaps
not to be expected that so extensive and costly an undertaking
should be entered upon at once.
From what has been said in the preceding pages, the reader
will, it is hoped, have gathered some idea of the nature
and scope of a geological survey. He will not fail to have
noticed that, as in geographical, so in geological work, the
reconnoissance is a very different thing from the thorough sur
vey. And as it is only countries far advanced in wealth and
civilization which can have accurate maps of their domains, so
it is only those possessing accurate maps which can have their
geological work thoroughly done. And the more detailed the
investigations which are made in any region, the more prac
tically valuable they are ; indeed, it may be said with truth,
that it is only work which is detailed and thoroughly accurate
that can be trusted and used, where a problem of economical

86
importance, involving a considerable expenditure of money, is
to be solved. The reconnoissance answers the purpose of
satisfying the curiosity of the general public, and awakens
scientific interest, by opening new problems for investigation ;
but the capitalist and the miner can only use as a guide that
which goes into minute details, giving measures and distances
' with accuracy.
Another circumstance must be taken into consideration ; that
is, the necessity of a partial development, at least, of the min
eral resources of a country, before much that is trustworthy
can be ascertained about their value. It is much easier for
the geologist, as for every one else, to see through the mill
stone after the hole has been bored in it. Indeed, in many in
stances, the character of the surface of a country is absolutely
no guide to what is beneath. What could any one have
known of the marvellously intricate structure and wonderful
development of the Belgian coal-fields before the rocks had
been reached and laid open by shafts and borings carried down
through the horizontal, undisturbed strata which overlie the
crumpled and dislocated coal-measures beneath, from which
that little busy country derives so much of its wealth? The
geologist must have his opportunities ; and especially the min
ing geologist, for each mining district has its peculiarities, and
these can often hardly be guessed at before they have been
revealed by actual working. It is only in the oldest and best-
known mineral regions of Europe, where work has been carried
on, uninterruptedly, for hundreds of years, that one can feel a
tolerable degree of security in giving an opinion in regard to
the value of a newly opened metalliferous deposit ; and it is
there that the importance and value of accurately kept records
of previous work are shown to be of so much value. As a con
trast to the completeness of our knowledge of what has been
done and is doing in Europe, in the way of utilizing the mineral
deposits of the various states, let the inquirer consider how
little is definitely known of the present resources of Mexico
and the South American countries, which have been so pro
ductive in the precious and other metals in former days. What
a record of ignorance and waste is there displayed, and how
wretched the net result to the people !

87
If our own geological surveys, begun when the science was
almost in its infancy, and when, indeed, in this country every
thing was yet to be learned, have thus far had no considerable
immediate practical value, they have been of great importance
in the way of developing a taste for the natural sciences, which
are all more or less included in the study of geology. And
there was no other method by which progress could be made
than that of beginning, and doing the best that could be done
under the circumstances. The condition of things has greatly
changed in this country, since it was thought that the physi
cian could leave his patients, or the clergyman his pulpit, and
give an authoritative opinion on the structure and mineral le-
sourc.es of the country. Schools of science are now numerous ; '
and some of them, at least, fairly well equipped for teaching
those specialties which are needed for doing good work in geo
graphical or geological surveys. Forty years ago there were, at
the most, half a dozen Americans pursuing scientific studies in
Europe ; now the number may be counted, probably, by the
hundred. Could the knowledge and ability we have in the land
be economically and judiciously utilized, a large amount of
first-class work could be done, and fine results obtained ; and
that, too, without any considerable increase in the expenditure
beyond that which is now habitually incurred.
We come now to make a practical application of what has
been said in the preceding pages, and in a previous article on
geographical surveys, to the State of Massachusetts. Of what
has been already done here mention has been made ; and it has
been noticed that the matter of a new survey was before the
Legislature at its last session, and was the subject of a report
from the " State Board of Education," to which the question had
been confided for examination at the preceding session. The
bill introduced for the purpose of organizing a topographical,
geological, and biological survey of the Commonwealth failed
to become a law, so that the subject remains open for dis
cussion. And before commencing an examination of some of the prin
cipal points to which attention ought to be given in this con
nection, it may be well to mention that the area of the State of
Massachusetts is usually given at 7,800 square miles, while

88
the population, by the census of 1870, was very nearly a mil
lion and a half of souls, so that we have an average density of
186 to the square mile. In the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland there is an average of 260, in Belgium of
462, to the square mile. In Massachusetts the population is
considerably more dense in the eastern than in the western
and northwestern portions. The most thinly inhabited part
of the State has also the most uneven surface, although there
is but a comparatively small area which is too mountainous to
be brought under cultivation. Massachusetts is essentially a
manufacturing State : according to the last census the value of
her manufactured products, in 1870, was nearly $554,000,000,
¦ while the figures given for New York — with six times the
area and three times the population of Massachusetts — are
$785,000,000. The wealth of Massachusetts is only ex
ceeded by that of New York and Pennsylvania, and is nearly
double that of New York in proportion to its area. The met
alliferous mines of this State are of little importance, but the
quarries of building material are extensive ; although, as com
pared with the manufacturing interest, the value of their prod
uct seems but trifling. The value of the iron mined was, in
1870, according to the Census Report, $ 30,000 ; no other
metalliferous ore is mentioned as having been worked in that
year in Massachusetts ; neither is there a record of any prod
uce of coal. The value of the products of our quarries is
given at $ 1,362,648, or about ^-^ of that of our manufactures.
These are some of the principal data to be kept in mind,
while discussing the subject of geographical and geological
surveys with reference to the State in question.
It will be admitted by all that if any one of the United
States can afford to carry on a thorough survey, it is Massa
chusetts. The density of her population is considerable, even
as compared with that of some of the most thickly inhabited.
European states ; her wealth is great, and the development of
her commercial and manufacturing interests has been, and is,
rapid. Land is valuable, and is likely to become more so from
year to year, and economy and skill are needed in order that.
a State which has become wealthy rather by means of hard
work and indomitable energy, than because she has been boun-;

89
tifully provided with natural resources, may continue to occupy
a high relative position, in competition with other portions of
the country which have a richer soil and a much greater supply
of mineral or metallic wealth.
In considering what kind of a topographical survey is needed,
we have to inquire how such a work is utilized after it has been
completed, or, in other words, what is the pecuniary induce
ment for its prosecution. All will admit that it would be
unwise to enter upon an undertaking which must of necessity
be very expensive, without a clear understanding, at the outset,
of the reasons why the expenditure is to be made. Besides,
the scale and degree of accuracy of the work to be done de
pend on the use which is to be made of the results ; until this
point has been settled, it would be idle to estimate its cost,
or to attempt to limit the time of its completion. Now, the
principal objects of the great topographical surveys in Europe
are : first, to furnish the government with the necessary data
for fairly and accurately determining and apportioning taxa
tion ; and, second, to make it possible for transfers of real
estate to be made with ease and precision. In other words,
the cadastral, topographical, or ordnance survey — by what
ever name it may be called — is a part of the machinery of
the government, and, as it appears to most civilized states, a
necessary part. It is true, also, that topographical maps are
of importance on the Continent, — where wars have been,
and are likely to be, frequent, — for guiding the movements of
armies ; but this has been a consideration of little weight in
England, and is still less to be taken into account here. The
peaceful aspects of the subject need only occupy our attention.
In addition to the great and all-important uses to which an
accurate topographical map can be put, namely, those con
nected with taxation and the transfer of real estate, there are
many other minor ones, which have already, in part, been sug
gested in the preceding article on this subject. It can be said
with truth, however, that we have had no such accurate sur
veys as are going on in the different European states, because
here the people do not know the uses to which such work is put,
while there the government does know. It is, therefore, most
reasonable to suppose that, in a country where the people are.

90
the government, the necessary preliminary to such a work as
that we are now discussing will be increased knowledge on the
part of the people. Let them but once fully comprehend the
advantages which such a survey offers, when well done, and
they would never be willing to do without it. Let the work be
begun without a full understanding, and a settlement by legis
lation, of the uses to which it is to be put, and the probability is
strong that it would be stopped, as soon as a " realizing sense "
of its cost began to be felt. Hence we argue that, instead of
beginning another Hoosac Tunnel, which is sure to cost a great
deal, and which perhaps there may not be intelligence enough
in the State to utilize after it is done, the subject of a thorough
survey be fully investigated by a competent commission of ex
perts, who themselves have no axes to grind, and who are not
looking chiefly to the question of how their own pockets are
to be affected by the transaction. Let such a commission,
we say, find out by careful inquiry how work of this kind is
done in Europe, and how utilized there ; and then let them
investigate the question whether the conditions in this country
are such that it is possible for us to reap the full advantage of
so costly an undertaking. A careful discussion of the subject
should precede final action.
The crudeness of the Report of the Board of Education is
indeed remarkable ; and, in looking it over carefully, it is
difficult to avoid the conclusion that the members of the
Board, knowing nothing practically of these matters, have al
lowed themselves to be counselled by those who, from motives
which it is not difficult to divine, were more anxious to have
the work done, than to have it well done. It seems a pity
that, after forty yearS of supposed development and improve
ment, the Legislature and the people of Massachusetts should
find themselves, in reference to the question of a topographical
survey, about where they were in 1830, ignorant of the nature
and use of the work proposed, misinformed in regard- to the
methods required for doing it accurately, and led all astray in
the important matter of its cost. Indeed, the main object of
the report seems to have been to create the impression that the
whole thing can be accomplished with but a trifling expendi
ture'; that is, for less than a tenth part of what it is thought

91
necessary to expend, per square mile of area surveyed, on the
Ordnance Survey of Great Britain and Ireland. To make this
appear reasonable, it is suggested that the old Borden triangu
lation can be utilized ; and then, it is added, that Congress
having provided that the Coast Survey shall " determine the
necessary triangulating points in every State which shall make
appropriations for a topographical survey," therefore the trian
gulation can be done at the expense of the United States.
Thus it appears that two different triangulations are to be used
in the new survey, neither of which is to cost the State of
Massachusetts a penny ; but how the two are to be combined
so as to form one harmonious whole is a problem on which no
light is thrown in the Report. The idea is simply an absurdity.
Any one acquainted with these matters would recognize the fact
at once that the old Borden triangulation could not be used
in a new survey, under any circumstances ; that, even sup
posing it were accurate enough, it would be more: expensive to
determine the position of the old stations than it would be to
make new ones ; and if Mr. Borden's work is to be made use
of, all his stations will have to be occupied again for the sec
ondary and tertiary triangulations, which never were made in
the previous survey. The idea, also, that the United States can
be relied on to furnish the main triangulation seems to us a de
lusion. As has already been shown, if the whole amount ap
propriated by Congress for this kind of work were to be expended
in Massachusetts, it would only enable the Coast Survey to carry
on the triangulation with a moderate degree of rapidity, and it ¦
would certainly require several years for its completion. And
does any one suppose that it will be possible to limit to one
State only the expenditure of money which is now carefully
spread over a dozen or more States, in accordance with the
usual method of not favoring one part of the country more
than another, when the United States treasury is to pay the
bills ? Or is it fair to take It for granted that it will be possi
ble to secure from Congress so large an increase of the appro
priation for this special purpose as would be necessary in order
that a triangulation should be made of the whole country ?
And, if granted for one year, what security would there be of its
continuance during the next ? Besides, there are other reasons

92
why the whole survey, including the primary triangulation,
should be done by the State itself; but to enter into a full dis
cussion of the subject would require too much space and too
many technicalities, and this must be left for a more suitable
occasion. A thorough investigation of the whole matter would
settle this, as well as the other points which have been sug
gested. The recommendation that, for the contour lines,
" exact measurements be taken only every one hundred feet,
and that the auxiliary lines between them be filled in by the
topographer on the spot," might mean something in a moun
tainous country, where minute accuracy was not deemed es
sential ; but such a style of work is entirely unsuited to the
nature of the surface of this State, and the character of the
results which will have to be obtained, if the survey is to be
one of permanent value, and to be utilized for the purposes set
forth in the Report in question.* It is therefore not right or
reasonable that the impression should be given that a topo
graphical survey of Massachusetts can be made for $ 175,000,
which is the estimate of its cost made by the Board of Educa
tion. The old triangulation, only partially completed, cost-
nearly half that sum, and it was executed at a time when one.
dollar meant at least three times as much as it does now.
In regard to the geological part of the contemplated survey,
the first thing to be considered is this ; that the geology can
not be put upon the map, before the map is ready to receive it.
The geological and geographical work cannot be carried on
pari passu, without loss of time, increase of expense, and liabil
ity to error. The painter would not be asked to furnish a pic
ture, unless he had a canvas on which to work. All familiar
with geological field-work know that it is impossible to pro-:
ceed with accuracy and rapidity, except map in hand. The
* To illustrate this, it may be mentioned that in the Connecticut River Valley
the points at which the " exact measurements." were taken would be about fifty
miles apart ! Thut is, if a hydraulic engineer at Springfield wished to get some
accurate information from the State Survey for use at that place, he would find on
examination that there was a point, the altitude of which had been fixed with pre
cision on purpose for his convenience, and he would find it — at Greenfield, or pos
sibly at Northampton ! And similar conditions will obtain in all our river valleys,
where the fall is but slight, and, consequently, differences of level of a few inches
will be of the greatest importance.

93
organization of a geological survey then should be deferred,
until some of the sheets of the geographical map are done and
engraved ; and this must, under any circumstances, occupy
several years. But, of all the States of the Union, Massachu
setts is one which has least need of a geological survey. This
is not a region rich in mineral resources, and it never will be,
no matter with how much care its geological structure is inves
tigated. The impression is given in the Report of the Board
of Education, that a survey will " develop our coal-fields," and
transform us into an important mining community. This is
a delusion: if our coal-fields are ever developed, — that is, if
their extent and value become thoroughly known, and it be
found that they can be worked with profit, — it will be after
many and expensive underground explorations have been made
by boring and otherwise, and when, so far as we can now
foresee, conditions shall have become quite different from what
they now are. Previous attempts to make our coal-mines
profitable have failed, not for want of means and experience
in coal-mining generally, but because the rocks are too much
broken up, and the coal-beds themselves too irregular in thick
ness and- position, to make it possible to open and work them
without loss.
It is no part of the work of a geological survey to " develop "
either coal-fields or metalliferous veins. Development must
come from actual working, or from systematic exploration by
numerous and expensive borings. That this should be done
at the cost of the State would, no doubt, be agreeable to the
owners of the land beneath whose surface our coal-fields are
presumed to lie ; but it would hardly be considered by the
people as a legitimate expenditure of their money.
There are within the borders of this State several large and
well-defined veins in which argentiferous lead and copper ores
occur in considerable quantity. At the time of Dr. Hitchcock's
survey, they were considered by him as likely to be " of great
value to posterity, if not to the present generation." All the
attempts at working them have, however, proved to be unprof
itable ventures ; although a great deal of money has been
spent in this way at various times since 1765. The same has
been the case with the other metalliferous veins of New Eng-

94
land ; almost without exception the mines which have been
Opened on them have been disastrous failures. Eaton, Shel-
burne, and Warren, in New Hampshire, may be cited as typical
localities, where flattering surface indications have led to ex
tensive mining operations, without any permanently valuable
results ; and it is now many years since these workings were
abandoned, with but little chance of being resumed. These
facts should be borne in mind by those who are disposed to
look on every new discovery of metalliferous ore within our
borders as likely to lead to developments of great importance.
The experience of the past teaches the necessity of great caution
in the expenditure of money on mineral veins anywhere in New
England, however flattering may be the surface indications.
That wild speculations and hap-hazard investments in entirely
undeveloped mines are not likely to be followed by results favor
able either to the individuals concerned or the community in
general may also be pretty safely affirmed.
The structural geology of Massachusetts is not well under
stood, nor will it be for many years to come, for reasons which
have already been hinted at in the preceding pages. Little by
little it will be worked out ; but a geologist appointed by the
State will have few advantages over those which have been
possessed by the ablest men in the profession who have, from
time to time, tried their hand at deciphering the puzzle, having
no other motive than the interest which it presents to the sci
entific inquirer. Professor Dana, our ablest structural geolo
gist, has studied the hills of Berkshire, and begun the elucida
tion of their structure. James Hall, Henry D. Rogers, and
others, have done the same. If the Legislature wishes to
spend money in this way, let it be done ; but it would be
wrong to let it be thought that any report on the geology
which might be the result of the expenditure would be a final
ity, so far as the geological structure of the State is concerned,
or that it would be of much importance in the way of develop
ing unknown mineral treasures beneath the surface.
It appears to the writer, however, that there is a way in
which a State, situated as is Massachusetts in respect to
geology and mining, may not only do good service to science,
but also receive a quid pro quo in the way of valuable informa-

95
tion on questions of economical importance to the people. All
will admit that it is desirable that there should be somewhere
in each State a trustworthy source of information in regard to
the mode of occurrence and value of the various minerals and
metalliferous ores which are, or are thought to be, from time
to time discovered. And it is also desirable that a history of
the development of the resources of the State, in this depart
ment of its industry, should be kept, and such statistics col
lected as it is possible, under our form of government, to pro
cure. The question arises, how to have a permanent source of
information on these subjects, which shall be out of the reach
of politics and politicians, where one who does good work will
feel secure in his position, and not be obliged to spend a con
siderable portion of each year in lobbying his appropriation
through the Legislature, a humiliating necessity, in connection
with our State surveys, which is, of itself, enough to frighten
off the best men from having any connection with these under
takings. We would say that the best method of bringing
about these desirable results would be, for the State to endow a
professorship of economical geology in some institution of learn
ing, that one, of course, being selected which should be deemed
likely to keep up the highest standard of honesty and ability
among its professors. Coupled with this endowment should be
a proviso, that the appointee should report to the executive
either annually or biennially, on such subjects connected with
the geology and mineral resources of the State as might seem
to him to be of the most importance at the time. These re
ports could be laid before the Legislature, and printed or not,
according to their value. If the person selected to fill the
position were a man of high ability, no doubt his reports would
command attention, and well repay the cost of printing, while
their sale would defray a part or the whole of the expenditure.
In this way a perennial source of information would be
brought into existence, and the amount required for this pur
pose would not exceed that called for by the Board of Educa
tion for a geological survey, which would be limited in time,
and, after all, only the expression of the opinions of one person,
based on the information obtained during the short period of
the continuance of his own work. For it must not be forgotten

96
that much of that which is considered, in this country, as prop
erly belonging to the business of a geological survey, is work
which ought never to be brought to a close. New facts are
always turning up, new discoveries are made, commercial and
financial conditions change, new uses are found for old ma
terials previously deemed of no value, accumulated experience
and knowledge throw light on what was once obscure : all
these circumstances indicate that the time will never arrive
when everything will be known in regard to the geology of the
State, and that it would be wise for the Legislature to recog
nize this, and make provision for gathering and systematizing
the facts as they are developed, and for faithfully doing the
best that can be done to make them available to the people.