ate speculation, and preserving their discoveries of the untold wealth of the State for the public good, the detail of facts and results gained by the corps, over which such a lively civil as well pecuniary interest is suspended, cannot be made known until disclosed to the Legislature.

While this survey is progressing under this law, it is well to consider what additional arrangements should be made to prosecute this work with a force, in a style and to an extent, far beyond that now provided for. Although the Legislature of Missouri, after deliberating on the reports of the State Geologist, to be laid before them next winter, may determine to appropriate additional State funds for a more minute survey than could possibly be made under the present law; and although such a policy might display a liberal and patriotic spirit, yet this is not the only, neither is it the best policy to be pursued.

The State of Missouri has claims on the government of the United States, large claims, founded on principles of equity and good conscience, justified by precedents set by Congress, and capable of being firmly substantiated by sound reasons. These claims are in behalf of the geological survey of Missouri.

Immense sums of money have been appropriated by the General Government in behalf of the Survey of the Coast, of the Lakes, and of the Atlantic and Pacific ocean; and a respectable fund was lavished on the Dead Sea, while the center of the Union was suffering for aid to begin its own survey. Should not the center of the country receive from Congress equal regard with any one portion of its extremity? equal regard with any portion of Asia? Is it not equitable to be just before being generous? Is it not according to good conscience to take as much care of the heart as of the outside of the Union?

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On the question of a geological survey of a State, Congress has set precedents. The report of the Geological Survey of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, by DAVID DALE OWEN, U. S. Geologist, dated 20th October, 1851, published in an elegant and costly style, and with its elaborate maps, drawings and hundreds of illustrations, is one of the results of a liberal appropriation made by Congress for this object. This expensive printed report, issuing from the press "BY AUTHORITY OF CONGRESS," has been spread throughout the United States, and has found its way in various foreign lands, and thereby another and more glorious result has occurred to Wiscon

sin, Iowa and Minnesota, flowing from this munificent act of the General Government. Their population, labor, capital and prosperity have increased with a rapidity which excites the wonder and astonishment and even confounds the power of calculation of causes of those who do not consider the effect of this authorative record evidence of the beautiful scenes and vast resources of the land where the rivers of North America arise.

We are far from finding fault with the policy pursued by the General Government, in making appropriations from an overflowing treasury to discover and display the scenes and resources of the country, for we consider it one of the surest and most effective means of stimulating the industry, enterprise and independence of the people-of printing the beautiful and useful impressions of their country on their minds-of filling their hearts with a glow of love, of admiration and of reverence, for their benevolent Government.

We approve of the precedents, and advocate the continuance of this policy in behalf of every portion of the Union, and furthermore we declare, and hope to maintain our declaration by sound reasons, that the General Government should grant a quantity of land, equal to one township in each land district of the States containing public lands, to each of said States, for the purpose, first of making a minute, accurate and complete geological survey of the State, and second, for the perpetual endowment of a Farming and Mining College, in each one of such States.

The claims of the State of Missouri to such a grant are strong; and we will here present some of the reasons on which they are founded.

On an examination of the report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, dated 30th November, 1853, it is shown that the "Total unsold and unappropriated of offered and unoffered lands on the 30th of June, 1853, belonging to the United States, within the State of Missouri, was 22,722,801.41 acres." At the rate of $1.25 per acre, this quantity of land amounts to $28,403,501.

An equivalent to one township in each land district in Missouri, there being eight districts in the State, amounts to only 184,320 acres, and at the rate of $1.25 per acre, this quantity of land amounts to only $230,400, which leaves to the United States 22,538,481 acres, amounting in value, at the minimum Government price, to $28,173,100, making scarcely a perceptible deduction

from the quantity and value of Government lands in Missouri. Scarcely a perceptible deduction from the value, did we say! The value of the remainder will be increased far beyond that of the quantity granted. The Government will make money by the operation. The State of Missouri, as above shown, has already appropriated $20,000 for the purpose, and is prosecuting the work of this survey, which will enhance the value of the lands of the United States more than those of the people; as the lands which are settled are better known than those which are wild.

The settlement of the country by the pioneers, enhanced the value of Government lands by their improvements. For this service the people of Missouri should receive satisfaction. The grant claimed is less than the value of this civil service. The military is required to be subordinate to the civil authority. Then, why should civil service in subduing the wilderness, go unrewarded, while the military is not only paid, but also receives land warrants as a bounty? Why should the Public Domain be given away like a vast inheritance, often is to spendthrift children, when a portion of it may be wisely appropriated for their perpetual prosperity? Why should the cause of intellectual education receive endowments from the Government, and the cause of material education for useful, farming and mining purposes be suffered to languish in want and ignorance? The farmers and the miners want colleges for the study of their profession in life, as well as the lawyers and doctors. "Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts are the basis of civilization." This basis should be well founded in order to sustain the most perfect superstructure of Civil Government.

The Department of Manufactures so vital to the prosperity and independence of a country, would be quickly built up from the elements collected in the geological survey, and would be brightened by the prosperity of the farmers and miners.

The prosperity of each individual State adds luster to the general splendor of the Union. The prosperity of Missouri may relieve the United States from its present material dependence on England, especially for railroad iron which has now become an item of great national interest. The Geological Survey will hasten that glorious event. And although iron is a prominent and vast article in the wealth of Missouri, yet the coal, lead, cobalt, copper, nickle, manganese, emery, zinc, granite, porphyry, marble, alum earth, pipe and pottery clays, kaolin and glass sand, together

with evidences of tin, and sands of gold which are found along the St. Francois river, in Madison county-the evidences of tin being reported to us by that devoted and scientific investigator of geology, Dr. H. A. PROUT, and the sands of gold by the unimpeachable testimony of CHARLES GREGOIRE, Esq. the other articles being well and generally known to be found in the State-all these articles of wealth in Missouri will necessarily add to the material glory of the whole country. And they will be speedily developed, displayed and applied to use by the instrumentality of the geological survey.

The corn, wheat, hemp and tobacco soils, will also be made to produce even more abundantly than now, by the light and various genial influences flowing from the geological survey.

And not only the farming and mining interests, but the manufacturing and mercantile also, as a necessary consequence, would feel and manifest the healthy, stimulating effect of the geological survey; yet with and above all these interests rises that of the railroad system of Missouri, with its 1200 miles of main, leading trunk lines, which, more powerfully and more immediately than any other interest in the State, will be pushed and secured by the consummation of this measure. Indeed the railroad companies of Missouri, as the routes of their roads run through varied fertile and mineral regions, the evidence of whose wealth rests too exclusively on hearsay testimony, would be richly repaid by obtaining a geological survey of their respective routes at their own cost. Then they would have the record evidence, enabling them, as is acknowledged by railroad Engineers, to build their roads cheaper, by discovering the best material; to increase the amount of their stock subscription, by raising its value; to sell their bonds at higher rates, by strengthening their security; and by directing a stream of population, labor and capital along their roads, to promote their prosperity with redoubled energy.

Let then an earnest enthusiasm be aroused in this cause throughout the whole State. The more enlightened the people become on this subject, the stronger will their feelings, in its favor, grow. Let petitions be sent from every district in the State to each of its Senators and Representatives in Congress. Let all parties unitė as one man on this leading measure of public policy for the ben efit of every portion of the State, now and forever-the Geological Survey for the present-the perpetual endowment of a farm

ing and mining College for the future. Let each one of the railroad companies of the State send their memorials to Washington city, urging prompt action on the memorial of the Legislature, which was sent to Congress during the first half of the present century:* for the value of our railroad enterprises, as above shown, would be rapidly promoted by accurate disclosures of the unknown or merely rumored wealth along their routes. Let the mercantile and manufacturing interests whose prosperity is based on the products of the soils and the mines of the State, join with the railroad companies, and all political parties, to drive this measure with all their force; and may the people of Missouri never rest in the prosecution of these claims till this grant is gained, and this plan carried out. Then the mountains and the vallies of Missouri will become famous throughout foreign lands. Population, labor and capital will flow into this State, where the tide to California will return. Thousands of tons of railroad iron will soon be annually rolled out here; here the mechanic-the manufacturing the useful arts will flourish, sustained and adorned by the gold and the Fine Arts drawn from other lands. Here, in this heart of the Union, the pulsations of commercial life, will diffuse health and energy-along the veins and nerves of locomotion and communication, on railroads and on telegraphs, by the Gulf and by the Lakes, by the Atlantic and by the Pacific oceans,-throughout the whole body of the business world.

NOTE.-On examination of the last annual report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, we find that the government of the United States has granted land to the State of Illinois for Internal Improvements, amounting to 1,109,861.61 acres more than have been granted to Missouri for that purpose. Further; that the railroad grants to Illinois amount to 2,134,253 acres more than the railroad grants to Missouri, although the area of Illinois contains only 35,462,389 acres, while that of Missouri contains 41,623,680 acres; and finally, that the General Government retains only 4,115,969.97 acres in Illinois, while it holds 22,722,801.41 acres in Missouri.-EDITOR.

* See Western Journal, vol. 2, May, 1849.