Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE. Ib my inaugural address before the Legislature of this State, delivered last March, I gave a sketch of the mining history of the United States, with statistical notices of our mineral industry, as compared with that of other countries. I also gave some account of what has been done in other countries in the way of Geological Surveys, and of our own State Surveys. Some hints were incorporated into that address, touching the objects and aims of geological investigations, and what might be expected to be accomplished by the Survey of California. Furthermore, I showed how our work was planned and arranged, into what departments it was divided, to carry out the provisions of the Act by which the Survey was authorized, and gave some idea of what we hoped to be able to accomplish in each of these. I also promised to devote the best years of my life to this great work, with a single eye to the interests of the State in whose service I had just entered. Since that address was delivered, the work of the Survey has been going on uninterruptedly, and, I trust, successfully. We have worn out much shoe-leather in the service of the State, have climbed mountains and threaded canons, and made ourselves familiarly acquainted with the pleasures of climbing up chaparral-covered peaks in a mild temperature of one hundred and fifty degrees, or thereabouts, and a pack load of specimens and instruments on our backs. We have escaped perils by flood and field, have evaded the friendly embrace of the grizzly, and now find ourselves in the jaws of the Legislature. In a letter addressed to Governor Downey just at the close of the past year, I gave a brief synopsis of our doings up to that time, and mentioned what additions had been made to our corps, stating that we were now organized and a...