Albert Ripley Leeds

“ Granting that this officer is better qualified than any one else, it is evident, nevertheless, that a geological bureau, thus constituted, must reject a large part of the available talent of a State. Still worse, by taking possession of the field, and by closing the columns of the report to all but the paid officials of the survey, many whose labors might be of great value are rendered indifferent or hostile to the work. ”

“ It is from such wonderful works as these that we are enabled justly to appreciate the transcendent skill with which Nature performs her task when she tries her hand at the plastic arts; for example, what piece of statuary could be so faultless, in grouping and finish, as one of these specimens, which consists of thousands of apophyllite crystals, many of them an inch and averaging half an inch in size, festooned about a cluster of pendant stalactites? ”

“ Each stone is of one carat weight, and entirely limpid and without a flaw—fit, in fact, for setting, though never touched by the lapidary. Less costly, but hardly less beautiful than these, are some Aragonites from Sicily, which are strikingly thrown into relief by the pedestal of lemon-yellow crystals of sulphur upon which they are mounted. ”

“ A most important function of a geological survey is, to preserve knowledge for future use. Science is cumulative. It makes slow and painful advances. It is obliged to collect an abundance of facts before it comes to true conclusions. ”

“ One single mining-fever costs the State more than all the appropriations needed to discover and universally diffuse the truths of geology. The ignorance spoken of above finds a parallel only in the methods which were pursued in treating the crude petroleum after it had been sent to market. ”

“ Pennsylvania has lost enormously during the last twenty years by having no bureau of statistics, no corps of observation and publication, to observe and preserve, collate and relate, the facts of its geology and mineralogy, as they have successively made their appearance. ”

“ THE increasing taste for the pursuit of natural science in this country is strikingly exhibited by the rapid increase in the number of gem and mineral collections. The taste is not confined to men of any one profession, but is cultivated by lawyers, physicians, artists, engineers, iron-masters and persons in every rank and walk of life. ”

“ Still more rare is a mineral, of which singularly enough we possess as yet no satisfactory analysis, known as Turnerite, from the Tavetsch Valley in the Alps. In this collection there is a number of perfect crystals, five if I remember correctly, each of which displays many highly-lustrous facets, and occurring both isolated and embedded in a rock made up of quartz and albite. The largest crystal is three-quarters of an inch long and five-eighths of an inch thick. It is a doubly-terminated hexagonal prism, the basal edges being regularly replaced by twelve small planes. ”

“ One of the most curious specimens is a natural amalgam of silver. It is a dodecahedral crystal, one-half an inch by three-eighths in size, which communicates, by a solid rod of the same material passing through the interior of the rock and nearly concealed from view, with a similar crystal of amalgam. When placed in such a position that one crystal is vertically above its mate, and allowed to stand for a short time, the mercury finds its way downward and distends the lower crystal until its faces are quite obliterated. ”

“ A feeling of honorable pride should induce the officers and students of each institution to illustrate the flora and fauna, the mineralogy and geology of its collegiate district, more perfectly than any stranger could. ”

“ A few days ago an eminent civil engineer, who in his moments of leisure has collected one of the finest cabinets of minerals in this country and has made himself a practised mineralogist, complained that, after twenty years of disappointments, he had grown wearied of sending doubtful specimens to professors in colleges for determination, and of receiving no answers after the lapse of many months. ”

“ Hundreds of gangways have been driven and abandoned, and cannot now be studied, many of which woidd disclose the nature of faults and disturbances which affect neighboring properties, and overlying and underlying beds not yet worked, where certain knowledge is preserved to govern the future mining-engineer in his plans for getting at the mineral. ”

“ To the man of science the collection affords the gratification of examining fine specimens of bodies so extremely rare that few persons have ever beheld them. The resources of the cabinet are most generously placed at the disposal of those engaged in any special mineral research ”

“ No commonwealth can afford to be without such an apparatus for preserving from loss and forgetfulness the discoveries and investigations of private persons, even for one single year of its existence. Thousands of most valuable facts have been lost to us, during an interval, which cannot be recovered. ”

“ He must work as completely in the dark as if his knowledge had never been got, and often paid for at a ruinous expense. The sooner a geological survey is established, the better for the future interests of the State, as well as for its present necessities. ”

“ But there are hundreds who would shrink from publishing a lengthy article or reading a paper before a learned body, and yet are acute reasoners and accurate observers, and whose abilities could be made available by a good system of collecting and collating their fragmentary labors. I have met many school-teachers and pastors in Switzerland whose parochial duties confined them to obscure valleys among the mountains, and who still had found time to collect the fossils, plants, and minerals, of their poverty-stricken hamlets, and to make careful maps of the rock-strata. ”

“ The amount of intellectual labor which is utilized, and the number of valuable data collected each year, form but a small proportion of what is annually lost to the community through lack of organized effort. ”

“ There is a genus of minerals termed zeolites, from a Greek word signifying to boil, for the reason that when heated the large percentage of water which they contain escapes with intumescence, and of these one of the most remarkable species is scolecite, so called because, on touching it with the tip of a blow-pipe flame, it curls up like a worm. ”

“ It may be urged that few men are placed in such positions, or provided with such appliances, or possessed of sufficient leisure, to contribute any thing of value to the general stock of geological knowledge. ”

“ Much of the best talent of the time was engaged upon these stupendous labors, and around the eminent chiefs were gathered bands of enterprising students, whose methods of scientific work were formed beneath the eyes of masters. ”

“ How many openings on coal-veins are now covered up, no one being able to give any reliable information about them. Twenty thousand oil-borings have been made, and not one hundred of them are on record, if discoverable. ”